HEY  RUB-A-DUB-DUB 

A  BOOK  OF  THE  MYSTERY  AND 

WONDER  AND  TERROR 

OF  LIFE 


BOOKS  BY 
THEODORE  DREISER 


SISTER  CARRIE 

JENNIE  GERHARDT 

THE  FINANCIER 

THE  TITAN 

THE  GENIUS 

A  TRAVELER  AT  FORTY 

A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

PLAYS    OF    THE    NATURAL    AND 

SUPERNATURAL 
THE  HAND  OF  THE  POTTER 
FREE  AND  OTHER  STORIES 
TWELVE  MEN 


HEY  RUB-A-DUB-DUB 

A  BOOK  OF  THE  MYSTERY  AND 

WONDER    AND    TERROR 

OF   LIFE 


By  THEODORE    DREISER 

AUTHOB  or  "SISTER  CARRIE,"  "THE  HAND  OP  THE  POTTER," 

"FREE  AND  OTHER  STORIES,"  "JENNIE 

GERHARDT,"  ETC. 


BONIAND     LIVERIGHT 

NEW    YORK  192° 


Copyright,  1920, 
By  BONI  &  LIVERIGHT,  Inc. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  HEY  RUB-A-DUB-DUB i 

II.  CHANGE 19 

III.  SOME  ASPECTS  OP  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER    .     .  24 

IV.  THE  DREAM 60 

V.  THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER 74 

VI.  THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER 92 

VII.  PERSONALITY r '.**..  107 

VIII.  A  COUNSEL  TO  PERFECTION 115 

IX.  NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE   .     .     .  126 

X.  SECRECY — ITS  VALUE 142 

XI.  IDEALS,  MORALS,  AND  THE  DAILY  NEWSPAPER   .     .  152 

XII.  EQUATION  INEVITABLE .157 

XIII.  PHANTASMAGORIA 182 

XIV.  ASHTORETH 2OI 

XV.  THE  REFORMER 206 

XVI.  MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE 212 

XVII.  MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?    AN  INQUIRY   .     .     .  225 

XVIII.  THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE 238 

XIX.  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 252 

XX.  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS    ........  277 


HEY  RUB-A-DUB-DUB 


HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB! 


(Taken  from  the  notes  of  the  late  John  Paradiso) 

I  HAVE  lived  now  to  my  fortieth  year,  and  have  seen  a  good 
deal  of  life.  Just  now,  because  of  a  stretch  of  poverty,  I 
am  living  across  the  river  from  New  York,  in  New  Jersey,  in 
sight  of  a  splendid  tower,  the  Woolworth  Building  on  the  lower 
end  of  Manhattan,  which  lifts  its  defiant  spear  of  clay  into 
the  very  maw  of  heaven.  And  although  I  am  by  no  means  as 
far  from  it  as  is  Fifth  Avenue,  still  I  am  a  dweller  in  one  of 
the  shabbiest,  most  forlorn  neighborhoods  which  the  great  me- 
tropolis affords.  About  me  dwell  principally  Poles  and  Hun- 
garians, who  palaver  in  a  lingo  of  which  I  know  nothing  and 
who  live  as  I  would  despise  to  live,  poor  as  I  am.  For,  after 
all,  in  my  hall-bedroom,  which  commands  the  river  over  the 
lumberyard,  there  is  some  attempt  at  intellectual  adornment, 
whereas  outside  and  around  me  there  is  little  more  than  dull 
and  to  a  certain  extent  aggrieved  drudgery. 

Not  so  very  far  from  me  is  a  church,  a  great  yellow  struc- 
ture which  lifts  its  walls  out  of  a  ruck  of  cheap  frame  houses, 
and  those  muddy,  unpaved  streets  which  are  the  pride  of  Jer- 
sey City  and  Hoboken.  Here,  if  I  will,  I  can  hear  splendid 
masses  intoned,  see  bright  altars  and  stained  glass  windows  and 
people  going  to  confession  and  burning  votive  candles  before 
images.  And  if  I  go  of  a  Sunday,  which  I  rarely  do,  I  can 
hear  regularly  that  there  is  a  Christ  who  died  for  men,  and 


2  HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB! 

that  He  was  the  son  of  the  living  God  who  liveth  and  reigneth 
world  without  end. 

I  have  no  quarrel  with  this  doctrine.  I  can  hear  it  in  a 
hundred  thousand  churches  throughout  the  world.  But  I  am 
one  of  those  curious  persons  who  cannot  make  up  their  minds 
about  anything.  I  read  and  read,  almost  everything  that  I 
can  lay  hands  on — history,  politics,  philosophy,  art.  But  I  find 
that  one  history  contradicts  another,  one  philosopher  drives 
out  another.  Essayists,  in  the  main,  point  out  flaws  and  para- 
doxes in  the  current  conception  of  things;  novelists,  dramatists 
and  biographers  spread  tales  of  endless  disasters,  or  silly  illu- 
sions concerning  life,  duty,  love,  opportunity  and  the  like.  And 
I  sit  here  and  read  and  read,  when  I  have  time,  wondering. 

For>  friends,  I  am  a  scrivener  by  trade — or  try  to  be.  Be- 
times, trying  to  make  up  my  mind  what  to  say  about  life,  I  am 
a  motorman  on  a  street-car  at  three  dollars  and  twenty  cents  a 
day.  I  have  been  a  handy  man  in  a  junk  shop,  and  wagon 
driver,  anything  you  will,  so  long  as  thereby  I  could  keep 
body  and  soul  together.  I  am  not  handsome,  and  therefore 
not  attractive  to  women  probably — at  any  rate  I  appear  not 
to  be — and  in  consequence  am  very  much  alone.  Indeed,  I  am 
a  great  coward  when  it  comes  to  women.  Their  least  frown 
or  mood  of  indifference  frightens  me  and  makes  me  turn  inward 
to  myself,  where  dwell  innumerable  beautiful  women  who 
smile  and  nod  and  hang  on  my  arm  and  tell  me  they  love  me. 
Indeed,  they  whisper  of  scenes  so  beautiful  and  so  comforting 
that  I  know  they  are  not,  and  never  could  be,  true.  And  so,  in 
my  best  moments,  I  sit  at  my  table  and  try  to  write  stories 
which  no  doubt  equally  necessitous  editors  find  wholly  unavail- 
able. 

The  things  which  keep  me  thinking  and  thinking  are,  first, 
my  social  and  financial  state;  second,  the  difference  between 
my  point  of  view  and  that  of  thousands  of  other  respectable 
citizens,  who,  being  able  to  make  up  their  minds,  seem  to  find 


HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB!  3 

me  queer,  dull,  recessive,  or  at  any  rate  unsuited  to  their  tastes 
and  pleasures.  I  look  at  them,  and  while  I  say,  "Well,  thank 
heaven  I  am  not  like  that,"  still  I  immediately  ask  myself, 
"Am  I  not  all  wrong?  Should  I  not  be  happier  if  I,  too,  were 
like  John  Spitovesky,  or  Jacob  Feilchenfeld,  or  Vaclav  Melka?" 
— some  of  my  present  neighbors.  For  Spitovesky,  to  grow  a 
little  personal,  is  a  small  dusty  man  who  has  a  tobacco  store 
around  the  corner,  and  who  would,  I  earnestly  believe,  run  if  he 
were  threatened  with  a  bath.  He  smokes  his  own  three-for- 
fives  (Flor  de  Sissel  Grass),  and  deposits  much  of  the  ashes 
between  his  waistcoat  and  his  gray  striped  cotton  shirt.  His 
hair,  sticking  bushily  out  over  his  ears,  looks  as  though  it 
were  heavily  peppered  with  golden  snuff. 

"Mr.  Spitovesky,"  I  said  to  him  one  day  not  long  since, 
"have  you  been  reading  anything  about  the  Colorado  mining 
troubles?" 

"I  never  read  de  papers,"  he  said  with  a  shrug  of  his  shoul- 
der. 

"No?    Not  at  all?"  I  pursued. 

"Dere  is  nodding  in  dem — lies  mosdly.  Somedimes  I  look 
ad  de  baseball  news  in  sommer." 

"Oh,  I  see,"  I  said  hopelessly.  Then,  apropos  of  nothing, 
or  because  I  was  curious  as  to  my  neighbors,  "Are  you  a 
Catholic?" 

"I  doaned  belong  to  no  church.  I  doaned  mix  in  no  politics, 
neider.  Some  hof  de  men  aboud  here  get  excided  aboud  poli- 
tics; I  got  no  time.  I  'tend  to  mine  store." 

Seeing  him  stand  for  hours  against  his  doorpost,  or  sitting 
out  front  smoking  while  his  darksome  little  wife  peels  pota- 
toes or  sews  or  fusses  with  the  children,  I  could  never  under- 
stand his  "I  got  no  time." 

In  a  related  sense  there  are  my  friends  Jacob  Feichenfeld 
and  Vaclav  Melka,  whom  I  sometimes  envy  because  they  are 
so  different.  The  former,  the  butcher  to  whom  I  run  for  chops 


4  HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB! 

and  pigs'  feet  for  my  landlady,  Mrs.  Wscrinkuus;  the  latter  the 
keeper  of  a  spirituous  emporium  whose  windows  read  "Vynas, 
Scnapas."  Jacob,  like  every  other  honest  butcher  worthy  the 
name,  is  broad  and  beefy.  He  turns  on  me  a  friendly  eye  as  he 
inquires,  "About  so  thick?"  or  suggests  that  he  has  some  nice 
fresh  liver  or  beef  tongue,  things  which  he  knows  Mrs.  Wscrin- 
kuus likes.  I  can  sum  up  Mr.  Feilchenf eld's  philosophy  of  life 
when  I  report  that  to  every  intellectual  advance  I  make  he  ex- 
claims in  a  friendly  enough  way,  "I  dunno,"  or  "I  ain't  never 
heard  about  dot." 

My  pride  in  a  sturdy,  passive  acceptance  of  things,  how- 
ever, is  nearly  realized  in  Vaclav  Melka,  the  happy  dispenser 
of  "Vynas,  Scnapsas."  He  also  is  frequently  to  be  found  lean- 
ing in  his  doorway  in  summer,  business  being  not  too  brisk  dur- 
ing the  daytime,  surveying  the  world  with  a  reflective  eye.  He 
is  dark,  stocky,  black-haired,  black-eyed,  a  good  Pole  with  a 
head  like  a  wooden  peg,  almost  flat  at  the  top,  and  driven 
firmly  albeit  not  ungracefully  into  his  shoulders.  He  has  a 
wife  who  is  a  slattern  and  nearly  a  slave,  and  three  children 
who  seem  to  take  no  noticeable  harm  from  this  saloon  life. 
Leaning  in  coatless  ease  against  his  sticky  bar  of  an  evening,  he 
has  laid  down  the  law  concerning  morals  and  ethics,  thus: 
no  lying  or  stealing — among  friends;  no  brawling  or  assaults 
or  murdering  for  any  save  tremendous  reasons  of  passion;  no 
truckling  to  priests  or  sisters  who  should  mind  their  own 
business. 

"Did  you  ever  read  a  book,  Melka?"  I  once  asked  him.  It 
was  apropos  of  a  discussion  as  to  a  local  brawl. 

"Once.  It  was  about  a  feller  wot  killed  a  woman.  Mostly 
I  ain't  got  no  time  to  read.  Once  I  was  a  bath-rubber,  and 
I  had  time  then,  but  that  was  long  ago.  Books  ain't  nutting  for 
me." 

i  Melka  states,  however,  that  he  was  a  fool  to  come  here. 
"A  feller  wanted  me  to  take  dis  saloon,  and  here  I  am.  I 


HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB!  5 

make  a  living.  If  my  wife  died  I  would  go  back  to  my 
old  job,  I  think."  He  does  not  want  his  wife  to  die,  I  am  sure. 
It  does  not  make  that  much  difference. 

But  over  the  river  from  all  this  is  another  picture  which 
disturbs  me  even  more  than  my  present  surroundings,  be- 
cause, as  seen  from  here,  it  is  seemingly  beautiful  and  invit- 
ing. Its  tall  walls  are  those  of  a  fabled  city.  I  can  almost 
hear  the  tinkle  of  endless  wealth  in  banks,  the  honks  of  auto- 
mobiles, the  fanfare  of  a  great  constructive  trade  life.  At  night 
all  its  myriad  lights  seem  to  wink  at  me  and  exclaim,  "Why  so 
incompetent?  Why  so  idle,  so  poor?  Why  live  in  such  a 
wretched  neighborhood?  Why  not  cross  over  and  join  the 
great  gay  throng,  make  a  successful  way  for  yourself?  Why 
sit  aside  from  this  great  game  of  materiality  and  pretend  to 
ignore  it  or  to  feel  superior?" 

And  as  I  sit  and  think,  so  it  seems  to  me.  But,  alas,  I 
haven't  the  least  faculty  for  making  money,  not  the  least. 
Plainly  beyond  are  all  these  wonderful  things  which  are  being 
done  and  made  by  men  with  that  kind  of  ability  which  I 
appear  to  lack.  I  have  no  material,  constructive  sense.  I  can 
only  think  and  write,  in  a  way.  I  see  these  vast  institutions 
(there  are  great  warehouses  on  this  side,  too)  filled  to  over- 
flowing apparently  with  the  financially  interested  and  capable, 
but  I — I  have  not  the  least  idea  how  to  do  anything  likewise. 
Yet  I  am  not  lazy.  I  toil  over  my  stories  or  bounce  out  of  bed 
and  hurry  to  my  work  of  a  morning.  But  I  have  never  earned 
more  than  thirty-five  dollars  a  week  in  my  whole  life.  No,  I 
am  not  brilliant  financially. 

But  the  thing  that  troubles  me  most  is  the  constant  palaver 
going  on  in  the  papers  and  everywhere  concerning  right,  truth, 
duty,  justice,  mercy  and  the  like,  things  which  I  do  not  find 
expressed  very  clearly  in  my  own  motives  nor  in  the  motives 
of  those  immediately  about  me;  and  also  the  apparently  earn- 
est belief  on  the  part  of  ever  so  many  editors,  authors,  social 


6  HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB! 

reformers,  et  cetera,  that  every  person,  however  weak  or  dull- 
appearing  externally,  contains  within  himself  the  seed  or  the 
mechanism  for  producing  endless  energy  and  ability,  providing 
he  can  only  be  made  to  realize  that  he  has  it.  In  other  words 
we  are  all  Napoleons,  only  we  don't  know  it.  We  are  lazy 
Napoleons,  idle  Hannibals,  wasteful  and  indifferent  John  D. 
Rockefellers.  Turn  the  pages  of  any  magazine — are  there  not 
advertisements  of  and  treatises  on  How  To  Be  Successful, 
with  the  authors  thereof  offering  to  impart  their  knowledge 
of  how  so  to  be  for  a  comparative  song? 

Well,  I  am  not  one  who  can  believe  that.  In  my  very  hum- 
ble estimation  people  are  not  so.  They  are,  in  the  main,  as  I  see 
it,  weak  and  limited,  exceedingly  so,  like  Vaclav  Melka  or 
Mrs.  Wscrinkuus,  and  to  fill  their  humble  brains  with  notions  of 
an  impossible  supremacy,  if  it  could  be  done,  would  be  to  send 
them  forth  to  breast  the  ocean  in  a  cockleshell.  And,  yet,  here 
on  my  table,  borrowed  from  the  local  library  for  purposes  of 
idle  or  critical  examination,  is  a  silly  book  entitled  "Take  It!" 
—"It"  meaning  "the  world!" ';  and  another  "It's  Yours!"— the 
"It"  in  this  case  meaning  that  same  great  world!  All  you  have 
to  do  is  to  decide  so  to  do — and  to  try!  Am  I  a  fool  to  smile 
at  this  very  stout  doctrine,  to  doubt  whether  you  can  get 
more  than  four  quarts  out  of  any  four-quart  measure,  if  so 
much? 

But  to  return  to  this  same  matter  of  right,  truth,  justice, 
mercy,  so  freely  advertised  in  these  days  and  so  clearly  de- 
fined, apparently,  in  every  one's  mind  as  open  paths  by  which 
they  may  proceed.  In  the  main,  it  seems  to  me  that  peopl< 
are  not  concerned  about  right,  or  truth,  or  justice,  or  mercy,] 
or  duty,  as  abstract  principles  or  working  rules,  nor  do  II 
believe  that  the  average  man  knows  clearly  or  even  semi- 
clearly  what  is  meant  by  fcKe  words.  His  only  relation  to  them. 
so  far  as  I  can  see,  is  tEat  he  finds  them  used  in  a  certain 
reckless,  thoughtless  way  to  represent  some  method  of  ad- 


HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB!  7 

justment  by  which  he  would  like  to  think  he  is  protected  from 
assault  or  saved  from  misery,  and  so  uses  them  himself.  His 
concern  for  them  as  related  to  the  other  individual  is  that 
the  other  individual  should  not  infringe  on  him,  and  I  am  now 
speaking  of  the  common  unsuccessful  mass  as  well  as  of  the 
successful. 

Mrs.  Wscrinkuus,  poor  woman,  is  stingy  and  slightly  sus- 
picious, although  she  goes  to  church  Sundays  and  believes 
that  Christ's  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  the  living  truth.  She 
does  not  want  any  one  to  be  mean  to  her;  she  does  not  do 
anything  mean  to  other  people,  largely  because  she  has  no  par- 
ticular taste  or  capacity  in  that  direction.  Supposing  I  should 
advise  her  to  "Take  It!"  assure  her  that  "It"  was  hers  by 
right  of  capability!  What  would  become  of  right,  truth,  jus- 
tice, mercy  in  that  case? 

Or,  once  more,  let  us  take  Jacob  Feilchenfeld  and  John 
Spitovesky,  who  care  for  no  man  beyond  their  trade  and  whose 
attitude  toward  right,  truth,  mercy,  justice  is  as  above.  Sup- 
pose I  should  tell  them  to  take  "It,"  or  assure  them  that 
"It"  was  theirs?  Of  what  import  would  the  message  be? 
Vaclav  Melka  does  favors  only  in  return  for  favors.  He 
does  not  like  priests  because  they  are  always  taking  up  col- 
lections. If  you  told  him  to  take  "It"  he  would  proceed  to 
take  something  away  from  the  very  good  priests  first  of  all. 
Everywhere  I  find  the  common  man  imbued  with  this  feeling 
for  self-protection  and  self-advancement.  Truth  is  something 
that  must  be  told  to  him;  justice  is  what  he  deserves — al- 
though if  it  costs  him  nothing  he  will  gladly  see  it  extended 
to  the  other  fellow. 

But  do  not  think  for  one  moment  because  I  say  this  that  I 
think  myself  better  or  more  deserving  or  wiser  than  any  of 
these.  As  I  said  before,  I  do  not  understand  life,  although  I 
like  it;  I  may  even  say  that  I  like  this  sharp,  grasping  scheme 
of  things,  and  find  that  it  works  well.  Plainly  it  produces 


8  HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB! 

all  the  fine  spectacles  I  see.  If  it  had  not  been  for  a  certain 
hard,  seeking  ambition  in  Mr.  Woolworth  to  get  up  and  be 
superior  to  his  fellows,  where  would  his  splendid  tower  have 
come  from?  It  is  only  because  I  cannot  understand  why  peo- 
ple cling  so  fatuitously  to  the  idea  that  there  is  some  fixed 
idyllic  scheme  or  moral  order  handed  down  from  on  high,  which 
is  tender  and  charitable,  punishes  so-called  evil  and  always  re- 
wards so-called  good,  that  I  write  this.  If  it  punishes  evil,  it 
is  not  all  of  the  evil  that  I  see.  If  it  rewards  good,  then  much 
of  the  good  that  I  admire  goes  wholly  unrewarded,  on  this 
earth  at  least. 

But  to  return.  The  Catholics  believe  that  Christ  died  on  the 
Cross  for  them,  and  that  unless  the  Buddhists,  Shintoists, 
Mohammedans,  et  cetera,  reform  or  find  Christ  they  will  be 
lost.  Three  hundred  million  Mohammedans  believe  quite  oth- 
erwise. Two  hundred  and  fifty  million  Buddhists  believe  some- 
thing else.  The  Christian  Scientists  and  Hicksites  believe  still 
differently.  Then  there  are  historians  who  doubt  the  authentic- 
ity of  Christ  (Gibbon;  Vol.  i,  Chapters  15,  16).  Where  is  a 
moral  order  which  puts  a  false  interpretation  on  history  as  in 
the  case  of  sectarian  literature  (lists  furnished  on  application), 
or  allows  fetiches  to  flourish  like  the  grass  of  the  new  year? 

I  will  admit  that  in  cases  such  as  lying,  stealing  and  the  like 
there  is  always  a  so-called  moral  thing  to  do  or  say  when  these1 
so-called  moral  principles  or  beatitudes  are  inveighed  against. 
You  have  ridden  on  a  street-car;  pay  your  fare.  You  have- 
received  five  dollars  from  a  given  man;  return  it.  You  have 
had  endless  favors  from  a  given  individual;  do  not  maligni 
him.  Such  are  the  obvious  and  commonplace  things  with 
which  these  great  words  are  concerned;  and  in  these  prima 
facie  cases  these  so-called  principles  work  well  enough. 

But  take  a  case  where  temperament  or  body-needs  or  ap- 
petites fly  in  the  face  of  man-made  order,  where  a  great  spirit- 
thirst  stands  out  against  a  life-made  conviction.  Here  is 


HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB  1  9 

man-made  law,  and  here  is  dire  necessity.    On  which  side  is 
Right?    On  which  side  God? 

(1)  A  girl  falls  in  love  with  a  boy  to  whom  the  father  takes 
an  instant  dislike.    The  father  is  not  better  than  the  lover,  just 
different.    The  girl  and  boy  are  aflame  (no  chemical  law  of 
their  invention,  mind  you),  and  when  the  father  opposes  them 
they  wed  secretly.    Result,  rage.    A  weak  temperament  on  the 
part  of  the  father  (no  invention  of  his  own)  causes  him  to 
drink.    On  sight,  in  liquor,  he  kills  the  youth.    The  law  says 
he  must  be  hung  unless  justified.    A  lie  on  the  part  of  the  girl 
defaming  the  lover-husband  will  save  the  father.    On  which 
side  now  do  right,  truth,  justice,  mercy  stand? 

(2)  A  man  has  a  great  trade  idea.    He  sees  where  by  com- 
bining fourteen  companies  he  can  reduce  cost  of  manufacture 
and  sell  a  very  necessary  product  to  the  public  at  a  reduced 
rate,  the  while  he  makes  himself  rich.    In  the  matter  of  prin- 
ciple and  procedure    (right,   truth,   justice,   etc.),   since   his 
competitors  will  not  sell  out,  he  is  confronted  by  the  following 
propositions:  (a)  forming  a  joint  stock  company  and  permit- 
ting them  all  to  share  in  the  profits;  (b)  giving  them  the  idea, 
asking  nothing,  and  allowing  them  to  form  a  company  of  their 
own,  so  helping  humanity;    (c)  making  a  secret  combination 
with  four  or  five  and  underselling  the  others  and  so  compel 
them  to  sell  or  quit;  (d)  doing  nothing,  letting  time  and  chance 
work  and  the  public  wait.    Now  it  so  happens  that  the  second 
and  fourth  are  the  only  things  that  can  be  done  without 
opposition.    He  is  a  man  of  brains  and  ideals.    What  are  his 
rights,  duties,  privileges?    Where  do  justice,  mercy,  truth,  fit 
in  here,  and  how? 

(3)  A  man's  son  has  committed  a  crime.    The  man  realizes 
that  owing  to  deficiencies  of  his  own  he  has  never  been  able  to 
give  the  boy  a  right  training  or  a  fair  chance.    The  law  de- 
mands that  he  give  up  his  son,  even  though  he  loves  him  dearly 
and  feels  himself  responsible.    Where  do  right,  justice,  mercy 


io  HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB! 

work  here,  and  can  they  be  made  harmonious  and  conso- 
nant? 

These  are  but  three  of  fifty  instances  out  of  the  current 
papers  which  I  daily  read.  I  have  cited  them  to  show  how 
topsy-turvy  the  world  seems  to  me,  how  impossible  of  a  fixed 
explanation  or  rule.  Scarcely  any  two  individuals  but  will  be 
at  variance  on  these  propositions.  Yet  the  religionists,  the 
moralists,  the  editorial  writers  preach  a  faith  and  an  obvious 
line  of  duty  which  they  label  grandiosely  "right"  or  "true," 
"just"  or  "merciful."  My  observation  and  experience  lead  me 
to  believe  that  there  is  scarcely  a  so-called  "sane,"  right, 
merciful,  true,  just,  solution  to  anything.  I  know  that  many 
will  cry  in  answer  "Look  at  all  this  great  world!  Look  at  all 
the  interesting  things  made,  the  beautiful  things,  the  pleasures 
provided.  Are  not  these  the  intelligent  directive  product  of  a 
superior  governing  being,  who  is  kind  and  merciful  into  the 
bargain  and  who  has  our  interests  at  heart?  Can  you  doubt, 
when  you  observe  the  exact  laws  that  govern  in  mathematics, 
chemistry,  physics,  that  there  is  an  intelligent,  kindly  ruling 
power,  truthful,  merciful,  etc?"  My  answer  is:  I  can  and 
do,  for  these  things  can  be  used  as  readily  against  right, 
truth,  justice,  mercy,  as  we  understand  those  things,  as  they 
can  for  or  with  them.  If  you  don't  believe  this,  and  are  anti- 
German  or  anti- Japanese,  or  anti-anything  else,  see  how  those; 
or  any  other  so-called  inimical  powers  can  use  all  these  mag 
nificent  forces  or  arts  in  its  behalf  and  against  the  powers  o 
light  and  worth  such  as  you  understand  and  approve  of.  And 
when  justice  and  mercy  are  tacked  on  as  attributes  of  this 
intelligence  there  is  no  possible  appeal  to  human  reason. 

"But  only  look,"  some  one  is  sure  to  cry,  "at  some  of  the 
beautiful,  wonderful,  helpful  things  which  Divine  Providence 
or  Life,  or  Force,  or  Energy  has  provided  now  and  here  fo) 
man!  Railroads;  telegraphy;  the  telephone;  theaters;  gas 
electricity;  clothing  of  all  sorts;  newspapers;  books;  hotels 


HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB!  n 

stores;  fire  departments;  hospitals;  plumbing;  the  pleasures  of 
love  and  sex;  mu§ic."  An  admirable  list,  truly,  and  all  pro- 
vided by  one  struggling  genius  or  another  or  by  the  slow, 
cataclysmic  processes  of  nature:  fires,  deaths  and  painful 
births.  Aside  from  the  fact  that  all  of  these  things  can  be 
and  are  used  for  evil  as  well  as  good  purposes  (trust  oppres- 
sion, enemy  wars  and  the  like),  still  it  might  as  well  be  sup- 
plemented by  such  things  as  jails,  detectives,  penitentiaries, 
courts  of  law — good  or  evil  things,  as  you  choose  to  look  at 
them.  All  of  these  things  are  good  in  the  hands  of  good 
people,  evil  in  the  hands  of  the  evil,  and  nature  seems  not 
to  care  which  group  uses  them.  A  hospital  will  aid  a  scoundrel 
as  readily  as  a  good  man,  and  vice  versa. 

Common  dust  swept  into  our  atmosphere  makes  our  beauti- 
ful sunsets  and  blue  sky.  Sidereal  space,  as  we  know  it,  is  said 
to  be  one  welter  of  strangely  flowing  streams  of  rock  and  dust, 
a  wretched  mass  made  attractive  only  by  some  vast  com- 
pulsory coalition  into  a  star.  Stars  clash  and  blaze,  and  the 
whole  great  complicated  system  seems  one  erosive,  chaffering, 
bickering  effort,  with  here  and  there  a  tendency  to  stillness  and 
petrifaction.  This  world  as  we  know  it,  the  human  race  and 
the  accompanying  welter  of  animals  and  insects,  do  they  not, 
aside  from  momentary  phases  of  delight  and  beauty,  often 
strike  you  as  dull,  aimless,  cruel,  useless?  Are  not  the  processes 
by  which  they  are  produced  or  those  by  which  they  live  (the 
Chicago  slaughter-houses,  for  instance),  stark,  relentless, 
brutal,  shameful  even? — life  living  on  life,  the  preying  of  one 
on  another,  the  compulsory  aging  of  all,  the  hungers,  thirsts, 
destroying  losses  and  pains.  .  .  . 

But  I  was  talking  of  Jersey  City  and  my  difficulty  in  ad- 
justing myself  to  the  life  about  me,  thinking  as  I  do.  Yet 
such  facts  as  I  can  gather  only  confound  me  the  more.  Take 
the  daily  papers  which  I  have  been  reading  to  beguile  my 
loneliness,  and  note  that: 


12  HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB! 

(1)  Two  old  people  who  lived  near  me.  after  working  hard 
for  years  to  supply  themselves  with  a  competence,  were  ruined 
by  the  failure  of  a  bank  and  were  therefore  forced  to  seek 
work.    Not  finding  it,  they  were  compelled  to  make  a  choice 
between  subsisting  on  charity  and  dying.     Desiring  to  be  as 
agreeable  to  the  world  as  possible  and  not  to  be  a  burden 
to  it,  they  chose  death  by  gas,  locking  the  doors  of  their  bare 
little  home,  stuffing  paper  and  clothing  into  chinks  and  under 
doors  and  windows,  and  turning  on  the  gas,  seated  side-by-side 
and  hand-in-hand.    Naturally  the  end  came  quickly  enough, 
for  Divine  Mind  has  no  objection  to  ordinary  illuminating 
gas  killing  any  one.     It  did  not  inform  any  one  of  their 
predicament.     Impartial  gas  choked  them  as  quickly  as  it 
would  have  lighted  the  room,  and  yet  at  the  same  time,  accord- 
ing to  the  same  papers,  in  this  very  same  world 

(2)  The  sixteen-year-old  son  of  a  multi-millionaire  real 
estate  holder  was  left  over  fifty  million  dollars  by  his  fond 
father,  who  did  not  know  what  else  to  do  with  it,  the  same 
son  having  not  as  yet  exhibited  any  capacity  for  handling 
the  money  wisely  or  having  done  anything  to  deserve  it  save 
be  the  son  of  the  aforesaid  father. 

(3)  A  somewhat  bored  group  of  Newport  millionairesses 
give  a  dinner  for  the  pet  dogs  of  their  equally  wealthy  friends, 
one  particular  dog  or  doggess  being  host  or  hostess. 

(4)  A  Staten  Island  brewer  worth  twenty  millions  died  of 
heart  failure,  induced  by  undue  joy  over  the  fact  that  he  had 
been  elected  snare  drummer  of  a  shriners'  lodge,  after  spending 
thousands  upon  thousands  in  organizing  a  band  of  his  own 
and  developing  sufficient  influence  to  cause  a  shriners'  organi- 
zation to  tolerate  him. 

(5)  A  millionaire  politician  and  horse-racer  erected  a  fif- 
teen-thousand-dollar monument  to  a  horse. 

(6)  An  uneducated  darkey,  trying  to  make  his  way  North, 
climbed  upon  the  carriage  trucks  of  a  Pullman  attached  to  a 


HEY.  RUB-A-DUB-DUB!  13 

fast  express  and  was  swept  North  into  a  blizzard,  where  he  was 
finally  found  dving  of  exhaustion,  and  did  die — arms  and  legs 
frozen — a  victim  of  an  effort  to  better  his  condition. 

Puzzle:  locate  Divine  Mind,  Light,  Wisdom,  Truth,  Justice, 
Mercy  in  these  items. 

By  these  same  papers,  covering  several  months  or  more,  I 
saw  where: 

(1)  Several  people  died  waiting  in  line  on  bundle  day  for 
bundles  of  cast-off  clothing  given  by  those  who  could  not  use 
the  clothes  any  longer — not  such  people  as  you  and  I,  perhaps, 
but  those  who  were  sick,  or  old,  or  weak. 

(2)  Mr.  Ford,  manufacturer  of  automobiles,  was  convinced 
that  he  could  reform  any  criminal  or  bad  character  by  giving 
him  or  her  plenty  of  work  to  do  at  good  wages  and  with  the 
prospect  of  advancement;  also  that  he  was  earning  too  much 
and  wished  to  divide  with  his  fellow  man. 

(3)  August  Belmont  and  J.  P.  Morgan,  Jr.,  noting  this 
item,  concluded  that  they  could  not  do  anything  for  any  one, 
intellectually,  financially  or  otherwise. 

(4)  An  attendant  in  an  Odd  Fellows  Home,  having  tired 
of  some  old  patients,  chloroformed  them  all — a  purely  pagan 
event  and  not  possible  in  an  enlightened  age  and  a  Christian 
country. 

(5)  A  priest,  having  murdered  a  girl  and  confessed  to  it, 
no  way  was  found  to  electrocute  him  because  of  his  cloth. 
Men  whose  services  and  aid  he  contemned  insisted  that  he 
must  be  proved  insane  and  not  be  electrocuted,  though  he  did 
not  agree  with  them. 

(6)  A  young  soldier  and  his  bride,  but  one  day  married, 
walk  out  to  buy  furniture  for  their  new  home;  a  street  fight 
in  which  three  toughs  assail  each  other  with  pistols  breaks 
out  and  before  they  can  take  to  cover  a  stray  bullet  instantly 
kills  the  soldier-husband.     Subsequently  the  bride  becomes 
morbid  and  goes  insane. 


14  HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB! 

(7)  In  nearly  all  the  countries  of  the  late  great  war  a  day 
of  prayer  for  Divine  intervention  was  indulged  in,  but  prayer 
having  been  made  and  not  answered  the  combatants  proceeded 
to  make  more  and  worse  war — Divine  prohibition  of  combat, 
according  to  the  Christian  dogma,  being  no  bar  nor  of  any 
avail. 

(8)  A  well-known  Western  financier  and  promoter  of  strong 
religious  and  moralistic  leanings,  having  projected  and  built  a 
well-known  railroad  and  made  it  immensely  prosperous  by  re- 
ducing the  rates  to  the  people  of  his  region  was  thereupon  set 
upon  by  other  financiers  who  wished  to  secure  his  property  for 
little  or  nothing,  and  being  attacked  by  false  charges  brought 
by  a  suborned  stockholder  and  his  road  thrown  into  the  hands 
of  a  receiver  by  a  compliant  judge,  was  so  injured  financially 
thereby  as  never  to  be  able  to  recover  his  property.     And 
those  who  attacked  him  justified  themselves  on  the  ground 
that  he  was  a  "rate-cutter"  and  so  a  disturbing  element — a 
disturber  of  the  peace  and  profits  of  other  railroads  adjacent 
and  elsewhere.     His  dying  statement  (years  later)  was  that 
American  history  would  yet  justify  him  and  that  God  governed 
for  good,  if  one  could  wait  long  enough! 

(9)  One  man  was  given  one  year  for  a  cold,  brutal  man- 
slaughter in  New  York,  whereas  a  whole  family  of  colored  peo- 
ple in  the  South  was  strilng  up  and  riddled  with  bullets  for  so 
little  as  that  one  of  them  fought  with  a  deputy  sheriff;  while 
a  woman  who  had  shot  another  woman  through  a  window 
because  of  jealousy  (aroused  by  her  husband's  assumed  atten- 
tions to  said  woman)   was  acquitted  and  then  went  on  the 
stage,  the  general  sentiment  being  that  "one  could  not  elec- 
trocute a  woman." 

(10)  The  principal  charities  aid  society  of  New  York  had 
spent  and  was  spending  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars 
per  year  on  running  expenses,  and  something  over  ninety  thou- 
sand dollars  in  actual  relief  work,  though  it  was  explained 


HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB!  15 

that  the  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  brought  about  much  refer- 
ence of  worthy  cases  to  other  agencies  and  private  charities,  a 
thing  which  could  not  otherwise  have  been  done. 

(n)  It  is  immoral,  un-Christian  and  illegitimate  to  have  a 
child  without  a  husband,  yet  when  six  hundred  thousand  men 
are  withdrawn  from  England  to  fight  the  Germans  and  twenty 
thousand  virgins  become  war-brides  it  is  proposed  to  legalize 
the  children  on  the  ground  that  it  is  nevertheless  moral  to  pre- 
serve the  nation  from  extinction. 

(12)  A  doctor  may  advise  against  child-birth  when  that 
experience  would  endanger  a  woman  or  threaten  her  perma- 
nent disability,  but  if  he  gives  information  or  furnishes  contra- 
ceptal  means  which  would  prevent  the  trying  situation  he  is 
guilty  of  a  misdemeanor,  subject  to  fine  and  the  ruin  of  his 
career. 

(13)  The  president  of  one  of  the  largest  street  railway  cor- 
porations in  the  world  finds  it  wrong  to  fail  to  rise  and  give 
your  seat  to  a  woman,  but  right  to  run  so  few  cars  as  to  make 
available  seats  for  only  one- third  of  the  traffic;  wrong  not  to 
take  extreme  precaution  in  stepping  off  or  on  a  car  or  crossing 
the  tracks,  but  right  to  leave  the  cars  without  heat,  the  win- 
dows and  floors  dirty  and  the  doors  broken,  making  anger,  delay 
and  haste  contribute  to  inattention  and  unfairness;  wrong  to 
read  a  newspaper  wide  open,  to  cross  your  legs  or  protrude 
your  feet  too  far,  thereby  inconveniencing  your  fellow-pas- 
senger, but  right  to  mulct  the  city,  composed  of  these  same 
passengers,  of  millions  via  stolen  franchises,  watered  stock, 
avoided  taxes,  the  refusal  of  transfers  at  principal  intersec- 
tions, to  say  nothing  of  the  prevention  of  fair  competition  via 
the  jitney  bus  and  other  means  which  would  relieve  traffic 
pressure,  and  all  with  no  excuse  save  that  the  corporation 
desires  the  money;  and  a  tame  public  endures  it  with  a  little 
ineffectual  murmuring. 

(14)  A  man  has  been  found  in  a  Western  penitentiary 


16  HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB! 

who  had  been  there  for  twenty  years  and  who  had  been  sent 
there  because  of  erroneous  circumstantial  evidence,  the  real 
offender  having  confessed  on  his  death-bed. 

(15)  A  certain  landlord  in  New  York  compelled  a  certain 
family  to  move,  because,  not  they,  but  some  of  their  visitors, 
wore  shabby,  hence  undesirable,  clothes,  thus  lowering  the 
social  and  material  tone  of  the  apartment  house  in  question 
and  causing  their  distant  but  still  watchful  fellow-tenants 
much  distress  of  mind  in  being  compelled  to  live  in  such  an 
atmosphere.  This  was  a  Riverside  Drive  apartment. 

But  need  I  cite  more,  really? 

It  is  because  of  these  things  that  I  sit  in  my  hall-bedroom, 
a  great  panorama  of  beauty  spread  out  before*  me,  and  hi 
attempting  to  write  of  this  thing,  life,  find  myself  confused. 
I  do  not  know  how  to  work  right,  truth,  justice,  mercy,  etc., 
into  these  things,  nor  am  I  sure  that  life  would  be  as  fascinat- 
ing without  them,  as  driving  or  forceful.  The  scenes  that  I 
look  upon  here  and  everywhere  are  beautiful  enough,  sun,  moon 
and  stars  swinging  in  their  courses,  seemingly  mathematically 
and  with  great  art  or  charm.  I  am  wiling  to  assume  that  their 
courses  are  calculated  and  intelligent,  but  no  more  and  no 
further.  And  the  river  at  this  moment  is  begemmed  with 
thousands  of  lights — a  truly  artistic  and  poetic  spectacle  and 
one  not  to  be  gainsaid.  By  day  it  is  gray,  or  blue,  or  green, 
wondrous  shades  by  turns;  by  night  a  jewel  world.  Gulls 
wheel  over  it;  tugs  strain  cheerily  to  and  fro,  emitting  gor- 
geous plumes  of  smoke.  Snows,  rains,  warmths,  colds  come  in 
endless  variety,  the  endless  fillip  which  gives  force  and  color  to 
our  days. 

Still  I  am  confused.  For,  on  the  one  hand,  here  is  Vaclav 
Melka,  who  does  not  care  much  for  this  alleged  charm;  nor 
John  Spitovesky;  nor  Jacob  Feilchenf eld ;  nor  many,  many 
others  like  them.  On  the  other  hand,  myself  and  many  others 
like  me,  sitting  and  meditating  on  it,  are  so  spellbound  that 


HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB!  17 

we  have  scarcely  any  thought  wherewith  to  earn  a  living. 
Life  seems  to  prove  but  one  thing  to  me,  and  that  is  that  the 
various  statements  concerning  right,  truth,  justice,  mercy  are 
palaver  merely,  an  earnest  and  necessitous  attempt,  perhaps, 
at  balance  and  equation  where  all  things  are  so  very  much 
unbalanced,  paradoxical  and  contradictory — the  small-change 
names  for  a  thing  or  things  of  which  we  have  not  yet  caught 
the  meaning.  History  teaches  me  little  save  that  nothing  is 
really  dependable  or  assured,  but  all  inexplicable  and  all  shot 
through  with  a  great  desire  on  the  part  of  many  to  do  or 
say  something  by  which  they  may  escape  the  unutterable  con- 
fusion of  time  and  the  feebleness  of  earthly  memory.  Cur- 
rent action,  it  appears,  demonstrates  much  the  same  thing. 
Kings  and  emperors  have  risen  and  gone.  Generals  and  cap- 
tains have  warred  and  departed.  Philosophers  have  dreamed, 
poets  have  written;  and  I,  mussing  around  among  religions, 
philosophies,  fictions  and  facts  can  find  nothing  wherewith  to 
solve  my  vaulting  egoism,  no  light,  and  no  way  to  be  any- 
thing more  than  the  humblest  servitor. 

Among  so  much  that  is  tempestuous  and  glittering  I  merely 
occasionally  scrub  and  make  bright  my  room.  I  look  out  at  the 
river  flowing  by  now,  after  hundreds  of  millions  of  years  of 
loneliness  where  there  was  nothing  but  silence  and  waste  (past 
so  much  now  that  is  vivid,  colorful,  human),  and  say  to  myself: 
Well,  where  there  is  so  much  order  and  love  of  order  in  every 
one  and  everywhere  there  must  be  some  great  elemental  spirit 
holding  for  order  of  sorts,  at  any  rate.  Stars  do  not  swing 
in  given  orbits  for  nothing  surely,  or  at  least  I  might  have 
faith  to  that  extent.  But  when  I  step  out  and  encounter, 
as  I  daily  do,  lust  and  greed,  plotting  and  trapping,  and  envy 
and  all  uncharitableness,  including  murder — all  severely  con- 
demned by  the  social  code,  the  Bible  and  a  thousand  wise  saws 
and  laws — and  also  see,  as  I  daily  do,  vast  schemes  of  chicane 
grinding  the  faces  of  the  poor,  and  wars  brutally  involving 


18  HEY,  RUB-A-DUB-DUB! 

the  death  of  millions  whose  lives  are  precious  to  them  be/- 
cause  of  the  love  of  power  on  the  part  of  some  one  or  many, 
I  am  not  so  sure.  Illusions  hold  too  many;  lust  and  greed, 
vast  and  bleary-eyed,  dominate  too  many  more.  Ignorance, 
vast  and  almost  unconquerable,  hugs  and  licks  its  chains  in 
reverence.  Brute  strength  sits  empurpled  and  laughs  a  throaty 
laugh. 

Yet  here  is  the  great  river — that  is  beautiful;  and  Mr.  Wool- 
worth's  tower,  a  strange  attempt  on  the  part  of  man  to  seem 
more  than  he  is;  and  a  thousand  other  evidences  of  hopes  and 
dreams,  all  too  frail  perhaps  against  the  endless  drag  toward 
nothingness,  but  still  lovely  and  comforting.  And^yet  here  also 
is  Vaclav  Melka,  who  wants  to  be  a  bath-rubber  again!  John 
Spitovesky,  who  doesn't  care;  Jacob  Feilchenfeld,  who  never 
heard;  and  millions  of  others  like  them,  and  I — I  think  and 
grow  confused,  and  earn  nineteen-twenty  a  week  or  less — never 
more,  apparently. 

Come  to  think  of  it,  is  it  not  a  wonder,  holding  such  impossi- 
ble views  as  I  do,  that  I  earn  anything  at  all? 


CHANGE 

TF  I  were  to  preach  any  doctrine  to  the  world  it  would  be 
•1  love  of  change,  or  at  least  lack  of  fear  of  it.  From  the 
Bible  I  would  quote:  "The  older  order  changeth,  giving  place 
to  the  new,"  and  from  Nietzsche:  "Learn  to  revalue  your 
values."  The  most  inartistic  and  discouraging  phase  of  the 
visible  scene,  in  so  far  as  it  relates  to  humanity,  is  its  tendency 
to  stratification,  stagnation  and  rigidity.  Yet  from  somewhere, 
fortunately,  out  of  the  demiurge  there  blows  ever  and  anon 
a  new  breath,  quite  as  though  humanity  were  an  instrument 
through  which  a  force  were  calling  for  freshness  and  change. 
The  old  or  unyielding  die  or  crumble;  the  unwitting  young 
arise  to  take  their  places.  By  this  same  thing  which  brings 
man  into  being  is  he  ended  before  he  becomes  inelastic  and 
unpliable.  Indeed,  Nature  constantly  replaces  her  handiwork, 
quite  as  in  the  case  of  the  leaves  on  the  trees,  creating  newer, 
greener,  sappier  things.  This  is  just  as  true  of  religions, 
theories,  arts  and  philosophies  as  it  is  of  animals,  races  and 
individuals.  Nothing  is  fixed.  The  most  convincing  and 
stable  thing  that  you  know  may  well  bear  inquiring  scrutiny, 
even  this  law  of  change.  Out  of  the  well-springs  of  the  deep 
what  may  not  arise? 

I  often  think  how  foolishly  humanity  opposes  change  at 
times  and  how  steadily  and  uninterruptedly  it  flows  in,  alter- 
ing the  face  of  the  world.  With  how  many  astounding  changes 
has  not  life  been  visited — astounding  only  because  life  never 
seems  to  be  prepared  for  the  astounding.  Our  little  earth 
minds,  being  only  seventy  years  in  duration  and  wise  only  by 
reason  of  the  actual  experience  which  can  be  crowded  into 

19 


20  CHANGE 

that  time,  cannot  but  view  as  astounding  those  larger  natural 
phenomena  which  in  the  endless  duration  of  time  come  swiftly 
enough,  however  incalculably  slow  they  may  seem  to  us.  "For 
a  thousand  years  in  thy  sight  are  as  but  yesterday,"  a  million 
years  but  a  day  in  geologic  time.  But  to  a  being  whose  dura- 
tion is  only  seventy  years,  whose  thinking  period  about  forty, 
how  remote  they  seem,  even  impossible!  If  one  could  live  a 
thousand  years  the  value  of  change  in  connection  with  many 
things  would  appear  swiftly  enough,  and  the  seemingly  as- 
tounding would  become  the  natural  and  even  the  commonplace. 
If  one  but  observes  the  phenomena  of  geology  and  of  biology 
one  may  see  how  ready  Nature  is  to  quit  one  form  of  effort 
for  another,  once  its  uselessness  has  become  apparent,  to  drop 
a  difficult  tendency  in  one  direction  and  pursue  an  easier  one  in 
another.  Indeed,  the  theory  of  the  pragmatist  is  seemingly 
well-emphasized  at  times  by  the  disappearance  of  some  large 
and  presumably  successful  species  for  reasons  of  difficulty  in 
connection  with  its  sustenance,  and  the  steady  rise  of  some 
minor  creature  whose  wants  are  simple  and  not  difficult  to 
satisfy.  And  it  is  not  necessarily  through  aeons  and  aeons  of 
time  that  those  changes  are  accomplished  but  almost  instanter, 
as  when  behemoth  ended  and  the  great  auk  puffed  out.  Man 
says  to  himself  today,  "I  am  the  Lord  of  creation,"  but  is  he? 
A  slight  change  in  the  chemistry  of  our  atmosphere,  so  slight 
that  it  might  be  scarcely  noticeable,  a  change  in  the  odor 
of  the  air  or  the  taste  of  the  water,  could  soon  end  or  debilitate 
him  so  as  to  make  him  of  no  import  whatsoever.  It  might  be 
unfavorable  to  man  and  favorable,  let  us  say,  to  cats  or  spiders; 
then  man,  a  sleepy  stumbling  creature,  would  be  devoured  by 
his  hungry,  pagan  house  pet  and  the  theory  of  his  domination 
disposed  of.  Remote?  So  was  the  rise  of  Christianity.  If 
you  do  not  believe  this  read  history,  or  note  what  tragedies 
a  slight  trace  of  sewer  gas  can  produce  in  your  own  house- 
hold, how  smoke  ends  a  corps  of  firemen,  how  water,  too  much 


CHANGE  21 

heat,  too  much  cold,  may  destroy  us  all.  And  what  star  so 
humble  that  if  it  came  near  enough  could  not  effect  one  or 
another  of  these  changes? 

Deep  below  deep  lie  the  mysteries,  and  theories  flourish  like 
weeds  in  a  garden — or  let  us  call  them  flowers,  for  at  times  they 
are  so  artistic.  Arts  spring  out  of  the  mysteries,  but  the  arts 
themselves  grow  stale  if  left  to  themselves.  The  thing  that 
the  individual  should  remember  is  that  he  is  a  part  of  this  vast 
restlessness,  uncertainty  and  opportunism.  Life  will  have  none 
of  anything  forever,  neither  Egypt  nor  Greece  nor  Rome  nor 
England  nor  America;  it  will  not  have  anything  of  one  type  of 
god,  nor  a  fixed  code  of  morals,  nor  a  fixed  conclusion  as  to 
what  is  art,  nor  a  method  of  living.  We  build  up  rules  where- 
with life  is  to  be  governed,  and  behold! — some  fine  day  the 
character  of  life  itself  changes  and  our  rules  are  worthless. 

Many  of  us  now  dream  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  jus- 
tice, but  experience  teaches  us  that  it  is  an  abstraction  and 
that  what  we  actually  see  is  an  occasional  compromise  struck 
in  an  eternal  battle.  Many  believe  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  truth,  but,  if  there  is,  it  is  not  within  the  consciousness  of 
man,  for  he  has  not  the  knowledge  wherewith  to  discern  it. 
There  is  too  much  that  he  does  not  know  to  permit  him  to  say 
what  is  truth.  Likewise,  virtue  and  honesty  go  by  the  boards 
as  names  merely,  a  system  of  weights  and  measures,  balances 
struck  between  man  and  man.  They  are  symbols  of  something 
which  man  would  like  to  believe  true  and  permanent.  They 
represent  a  balance  he  would  like  to  strike  between  extremes 
on  either  hand,  but  they  are  only  important  to  him  in  his 
state  here.  Beyond  him  lie  the  deeps  which  may  know  them 
not.  All  we  can  know  is  that  we  cannot  know. 

Therefore,  what  I  would  most  earnestly  advocate,  if  it 
were  of  any  importance  so  to  do,  would  be  love  of  change,  for 
by  change  have  come  all  the  spectacles,  all  the  charms  and  all 


22  CHANGE 

the  creature  comforts  of  which  our  consciousness  is  aware. 
Life  appears  to  be  innately  artistic  in  all  that  it  attempts, 
so  that  we  need  not  trouble  ourselves  about  that;  we  can 
scarcely  escape  it.  If  there  is  a  seeming  love  of  order,  of 
stratification,  of  fixity,  in  connection  with  many  things,  an 
equally  unending  force  appears  to  be  bent  on  change  and 
variation,  so  that  that  something  within  us  which  tends  to  rigid 
duty  and  stratification  spells  suffering  or  disappointment  for 
us  in  so  far  as  we  are  unable  to  counteract  it.  The  caution, 
sprung  from  somewhere,  to  keep  an  open  mind  is  well-grounded 
in  Nature's  tendency  to  change.  Not  to  cling  too  pathetically 
to  a  religion  or  a  system  of  government  or  a  theory  of  morals 
or  a  method  of  living,  but  to  be  ready  to  abandon  at  a  mo- 
ment's notice  is  the  apparent  teaching  of  the  ages — to  be  able 
to  step  out  free  and  willing  to  accept  new  and  radically  dif- 
ferent conditions.  This  apparently  is  the  ideal  state  for  the 
human  mind.  Not  that  anything  so  much  more  perfect  is  in 
store  (I,  for  one,  do  not  believe  that),  but  that  a  different 
thing  is  at  hand,  always,  outside  your  door,  around  the  corner, 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  vision  of  even  the  philosopher  and 
the  thinker.  To  be  always  ready,  if  such  a  thing  were  pos- 
sible, to  meet  the  new  and  to  know  that  it  will  be  as  valuable 
as  the  old — that  is  the  great  thing.  But  what  vain  advice! 
for  the  experiences,  the  capacities,  the  tendencies  of  man  are 
not  in  his  keeping.  There  is  something  controlling,  of  which 
we  are  a  part  and  not  a  part;  there  is  a  mystery  to  which  we 
belong  yet  which  will  not  show  to  us  its  face.  Only  its  im- 
pulses burst  upon  us  from  day  to  day  and  from  century  to 
century,  making  us  weep  from  fear  or  regret,  or  faint  with 
terror,  or  thrill  wild  with  joy.  Out  of  the  deeps  they  come — 
the  realms  we  do  not  know.  What  is  Master?  Who?  What 
is  He  or  It  like?  Only  by  the  artistry  and  the  terror  and  the 
peace  and  the  change  through  which  it  works  can  we  guess, 


CHANGE  23 

and  all  names  and  fames  and  blames  by  which  we  qualify  it 
are  as  nothing,  save  that  they  brighten  the  face  of  its  one  out- 
standing  tendency,  which  we  must  accept  whether  we  will  or  not 
• — change. 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

OUR  most  outstanding  phases,  of  course,  are  youth,  opti- 
mism and  illusion.  These  run  through  everything  we  do, 
affect  our  judgments  and  passions,  our  theories  of  life.  As 
children  we  should  all  have  had  our  fill  of  these,  and  yet  even 
at  this  late  date  and  after  the  late  war,  which  should  have 
taught  us  much,  it  is  difficult  for  any  of  us  to  overcome  them. 
Still,  no  one  can  refuse  to  admire  the  youth  and  optimism  of 
America,  however  much  they  may  resent  its  illusion.  There 
is  always  something  so  naive  about  its  method  of  procedure,  so 
human  and  tolerant  at  times;  so  loutish,  stubborn  and  igno- 
rantly  insistent  at  others,  as  when  carpetbag  government  was 
forced  on  the  South  after  the  Civil  War  and  Jefferson  Davis 
detained  in  prison  for  years  after  the  war  was  over. 

Great  men  and  great  events,  so  I  was  told  in  my  youth, 
went  to  the  making  of  us.  The  dreams  of  justly  dissatisfied 
and  downtrodden  souls  elsewhere,  so  our  histories  read,  im- 
pelled them  to  seek  in  a  new  land  freedom  from  the  tyrannies 
which  had  oppressed  them  abroad.  Once  here,  they  were  pre- 
pared to  fight  and  die  in  order  that  the  vision  which  had  led 
them  forth  might  not  end  as  an  airy  insubstantial  nothing. 
For  us  (fatalistically,  at  any  rate,  if  not  really)  Columbia 
sailed  from  Palos  over  the  uncharted  deep;  Magellen  rounded 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope;  and  Vasco  da  Gama,  Cape  Horn; 
Balboa  discovered  the  Pacific,  Hendrick  Hudson  the  Hudson; 
De  Soto  and  Marquette  the  Mississippi.  For  us,  especially 
(although  before  that,  great  sociologic,  economic  and  moral 
dreamers  had  been  at  work),  Locke,  Paine,  Von  Humboldt, 

24. 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  25 

Voltaire,  Fourier,  de  Tocqueville,  Rousseau  thought  and 
dreamed. 

In  our  new  land,  fresh  upon  an  unbroken  soil,  giant  spirits 
swiftly  arose  to  testify  to  the  significance  of  these  dreams — 
Washington,  Jefferson,  Franklin,  Adams,  Hamilton,  intellectual 
and  social  enthusiasts  all — who  saw  a  vision,  or  seemed  to,  and 
dreamed  tremendous  dreams  of  the  wonders  to  come  to  our 
nation  and  race,  and  because  of  it  and  through  it  to  the  world 
at  large.  We,  more  than  any  other  nation,  because  ours  was 
the  youth  and  the  strength,  were  to  lift  and  maintain  aloft  the 
banner  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  freedom.  We  were  to  do 
tremendous  things,  not  for  the  human  pocketbook  but  the 
human  mind  and  soul.  Our  children  and  our  children's  chil- 
dren were  to  be  free,  progressive,  fearless,  mentally  and  spir- 
itually alert,  entirely  loosened  from  the  trammels  and  chains 
of  superstition  and  the  degradation  of  poverty  and  want. 

Well,  it  is  quite  true  that  we  have  done  some  things: 
fought  wars  for  our  "rights";  freed  the  slaves  (which,  how- 
ever, England  did  in  her  territories  before  we  did  and  with- 
out bloodshed);  "liberated"  Cuba  (to  no  exploitation  since?); 
struggled  with  the  Philippine  and  Mexican  problems  (to  no 
final  solution  however) ;  and  then  helped  to  crush  the  Kaiser 
without  seeking  gain  for  ourselves.  However,  it  is  also  quite 
true  that  at  no  time  in  our  history  has  this  ideal  been  quite 
realized,  even  though  in  the  hearts  of  a  modest  percentage  of 
the  population,  as  can  be  most  safely  asserted,  this  has  been 
a  dominant  and  moving  ideal.  Perhaps  its  realization  is  not 
within  the  possibilities  of  life.  We  are  all  slaves  essentially, 
and  there  have  as  yet  been  no  measures  devised  whereby  strong 
and  weak  people  will  not  be  generated  at  one  and  the  same 
time  side  by  side.  But  it  is  useless  to  say  to  the  average  Amer- 
ican that  democracy  is  a  dream  and  can  never  be  realized. 
He  will  never  believe  it.  Wars  come  and  go.  Strong  men  arise 
and  plot  and  conquer  and  disappear.  Weak  men  fail,  and  the 


26  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

poor  are  as  much  put  upon  here  as  anywhere  and  ignored 
and  laughed  at;  but  in  spite  of  all* these  facts  which  endure 
in  the  face  of  every  dream — of  love,  heaven,  perfect  happi- 
ness as  well  as  perfect  liberty — the  American  goes  on  dream- 
ing his  sweet  dream,  and  will.  Perhaps  he  already  has  all 
the  democracy  there  will  ever  be,  because  he  believes  that  he 
has  it. 

Millions  of  Americans  born  on  this  soil  or  arriving  here 
from  other  lands  believe  thus.  With  them  it  was  and  per- 
haps still  is  a  glowing  and  enlivening  thought  that  whether 
they  were  or  not  they  were  supposed  to  be  free.  Their  children 
and  their  children's  children  somehow  are  to  be  heirs  to  a 
magnificent  and  comforting  land,  one  over  which  a  wise  and 
generous  form  of  government,  the  fruit  of  the  dreams  and 
genius  of  their  forefathers,  their  generosity  and  social  as- 
piration, is  to  rule  and  ensure  all  the  blessings  for  which  they 
had  hoped  and  fought. 

Well  and  good.  The  thing  has  substance  enough  even  now 
in  the  face  of  some  setbacks  and  because  of  virgin  soil  and! 
boundless  untouched  opportunities,  unharassed  by  war  or  slav- 
ery, which  offer  to  physical  labor  as  well  as  to  the  imagination 
of  those  who  come  or  who  went  before  us,  great  opportunity. 
Their  success  hitherto  has  been  written  into  our  songs,  our 
books,  the  public  messages  of  our  statesmen  and  patriots. 
Even  to  this  day,  many  who  lack  even  a  shadow  of  the  sub- 
stance of  these  dreams  are  still  dreaming,  if  not  in  their 
reality  at  least  in  their  possibility  and  eventuality  here.  I 
in  my  youth  was  one  of  these.  I  saw  in  America  what  many 
others  around  me  seemed  to  see:  i.  e.,  many  if  not  all  of  the 
things  for  which  our  forefathers  fought  and  bled:  generous, 
protective  and  encouraging  laws  in  all  walks  of  life;  an! 
amazingly  free  and  unterrified  press;  a  warm,  sympathetic  and 
encouraging  educational  system  reaching  down  to  the  poorest 
and  humblest  child  and  helping  it  to  rise  and  better  its  station; 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  27 

a  real  political  referendum  or  ballot  system  by  which  all  pro- 
jected laws  and  movements  for  the  betterment  and  control 
of  the  impulses  and  tendencies  of  the  people  were  formulated 
and  with  their  consent; — and  these  seemed  real  enough. 

Well? 

Well,  I  still  think  we  have  a  modicum  of  these  things.  The 
pressure  of  the  strong  upon  the  weak  is  as  yet  not  too  grinding 
perhaps,  and  let  us  hope  may  never  be,  although  it  is  daily 
becoming  sharper.  The  poor  are  being  put  upon  while  being 
loudly  told  that  they  are  not — fed  on  air  and  kind  words,  as  it 
were.  The  powerful  are  learning  that  the  poor,  here  as  else- 
where, are  either  fools  or,  being  poor,  may  not  help  themselves; 
a  very  dangerous  state  of  mind  to  begin  with,  I  think. 

Yes,  in  recent  years  a  certain  change  has  come  over  the 
spirit  of  our  original  dreams.  Our  bright  morning  sky  has  been 
overcast  with  something  that  was  by  no  means  foreseen  by  the 
charming  and  gracious  idealists  who  framed  our  Constitution 
and,  better  yet,  our  ideals.  America,  ungracious  as  it  may 
seem  on  the  part  of  one  who  has  prospered  well  enough  in  it, 
is  neither  so  free  nor  so  liberal  as  many  imagined  it  would  be. 
Our  press,  our  school  system,  our  laws,  our  political  methods 
— do  these  today  answer  to  the  incisive  aspiration  which  was 
characteristic,  or  at  least  was  supposed  to  be  characteristic,  of 
the  spirit  of  those  who  generated  the  American  Republic? 

Let  us  see. 

The  fact  is  that  what  is  supposed  to  be  and  what  is  true  of 
American  history  are  two  very  different  things.  Because  as  a 
people  we  have  instinctively  craved  some  things  and  have 
written  it  into  a  Constitution  that  man  is  inalienably  entitled 
to  them,  it  does  not  follow  that  we  have  them;  although  most 
Americans,  I  am  inclined  to  fear,  think  so.  If  I  read  Amer- 
ican history  aright,  the  men  who  drew  up  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  and  framed  our  Constitution  were  men  who,  like 


28  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

ourselves  today,  were  in  the  grip  of  an  ideal  which  had  very 
little  to  do  with'  their  own  condition  or  the  actual  working 
necessities  and  conditions  of  life  as  seen  about  them.  Far 
from  being  democratic  at  that  time  America  was  quite  the 
reverse,  a  most  stratified  and  nobility-aping  nation  with  feudal 
servants  and  thralls  at  the  bottom  and  landed  and  all  but 
titled  proprietors  at  the  top  ("History  of  the  Great  American 
Fortunes/'  Myers).  But  those  same  leaders  and  many  follow- 
ers appear  to  have  been  in  the  grip  of  a  time-spirit  or  move- 
ment which  had  its  roots  as  far  back  in  time  as  the  thirteenth 
century,  when  Europe  seemed  to  give  new  birth  or  breath  to 
the  pagan  spirit  and  to  revolt  at  the  mummery  and  flummery 
of  kings  and  the  gorgeous  paraphernalia  of  a  religious  idea 
run  completely  to  seed.  Hess  and  Bruno  were  but  the  fore- 
steppers  of  Luther.  Bacon,  Locke,  Voltaire,  de  Tocqueville, 
Rousseau  and  Paine,  had  much  to  do  with  the  spirit  of  our 
American  Constitution.  Indeed,  it  is  a  question  whether 
the  latter  six,  and  especially  Rousseau  with  his  "Social  Con- 
tract," his  dream  of  a  new  social  arrangement  in  which  the 
State  should  do  so  much  more  than  it  had  ever  before  at- 
tempted to  do  for  its  constituent  units,  are  not  the  makers  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Yet  nothing  that  Paine,  Vol- 
taire, Locke  or  Rousseau  dreamed  or  believed  concerning  the 
essential  capacity  of  man  to  govern  himself  is  absolutely  true. 
What  is  true  is  that  autocracy  or  single-headed  government 
without  genius  and  a  love  of  humanity  is  closely  allied,  or  very 
likely  to  be,  to  tyranny;  whereas  democracy  or  multiple- 
headed  rotation  in  control  is  likely  to  prove  even  more  dan- 
gerous where  it  is  merely  dull.  It  has  not  even  the  advantage 
of  being  spectacular  and  interesting.  Whether  the  individual, 
thus  protected  against  tyranny,  is  likely  to  prove  a  greater  and 
more  useful  engine  or  mechanism  for  the  development  of  more 
and  better  thought,  more  beautiful  dreams  and  ideals  than 
the  world  ever  had  before,  remains  to  be  seen.  Dominant 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  29 

America,  now  in  the  saddle  of  the  world,  has  an  opportunity 
to  prove  this. 

But  does  history  provide  a  single  analogy?  Scarcely.  The 
older  nations  were  not  built  so  much  for  the  individual,  that 
he  might  have  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness 
guaranteed  him,  as  for  the  perpetuation  and  glory  of  the  State 
itself,  or  the  King  thereof.  This  was  true  of  Athens  and  Sparta 
as  well  as  the  Roman  Republic,  and  more  recently  of  Ger- 
many. It  is  very  doubtful  whether  the  modern  republic  is 
made  any  more  for  the  humble,  single  individual  than  the  old- 
time  kingdom.  Is  not  the  modern  trust-magnate  or  money- 
baron  who  taxes  and  drives  him  by  his  wage  arrangements  and 
food  extortion  as  much  of  a  King,  or  at  least  a  medieval 
baron,  as  any  such  that  ever  lived?  Take  Rockefeller,  for 
example.  How  different  is  he,  or  others  like  him — Morgan, 
for  instance — to  the  Dons  who  in  combination  ruled  Spain, 
laughing  at  its  King,  or  the  money-lords  who  direct  the  policy 
of  England  today,  as  did  their  equivalents  in  Russia  and  Ger- 
many before  the  late  war? 

The  truth  is  that  it  is  given  to  few,  if  any,  individuals  of  a 
nation  to  understand  it.  By  some  it  is  assumed  that  the  in- 
dividual must  rule.  By  others  the  mass.  Neither  is  true. 
The  mass  at  times  must  be  pitted  against  the  individual,  and 
vice  versa.  But  neither  must  disappear  entirely.  That  would 
spell  death  or  slumber.  It  is  also  a  question  whether  any  na- 
tion at  any  time  ever  collectively  understands  itself.  Do  not 
some  portions  of  its  units  always  misunderstand  other  portions? 
Take  our  part  in  the  late  great  war.  Sentimentally,  a  fair 
portion  of  America's  integral  units  assumed  that  we  entered 
the  war  to  "free  humanity  from  slavery"  and  "to  make  the 
world  safe  for  democracy,"  a  very  large  order;  but,  to  quote 
one  of  President  Wilson's  later  utterances,  it  was  for  a  some- 
what different  purpose,  namely,  "the  destruction  of  every  arbi- 
trary power  anywhere  that  can  separately  and  secretly  and  of 


30  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

single  choice  disturb  the  peace  of  the  world."  Well,  that  is  not 
exactly  the  same  as  making  it  safe  for  democracy — but  still — . 
The  truth  probably  is  that  the  nation,  propelled  by  its  instinct 
for  self-preservation,  entered  the  war  to  make  America  safe. 
It  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  sooner  or  later  we  should  have 
gone  to  war  with  Germany  had  there  been  no  European  war. 
Germany  was  known  to  regard  with  avid  eye  many  phases 
of  this  Western  hemisphere,  its  resources,  institutions,  preten- 
sions; so  America  very  practically,  however  sentimental  the  rea- 
sons given  may  be,  engaged  herself  on  the  side  of  four  or  five 
powers  of  the  first  rank  (some  long  friendly,  others  not  uni- 
formly so)  to  protect  her  future  interests. 

From  a  practical  point  of  view  there  were,  and  of  course 
were  sure  to  be,  many  who  disagreed  with  the  somewhat  senti- 
mental interpretation  of  all  this.  More  than  one  person  of 
authority  at  the  time  privately  ventured  the  opinion  that  in 
giving  so  much  to  aid  Europe  something  should  have  been 
done  to  secure  for  America  its  future  integrity  in  the  Western 
hemisphere.  "In  so  far  as  Mexico,  Canada,  the  West  Indies 
and  the  Pacific  are  concerned,"  wrote  one  authority,  "should 
not  everything  be  done  to  further  our  interests  there?"  Canada, 
one  would  say,  thinking  of  a  nation  that  should  be  looking  rea- 
sonably well  after  its  own  welfare,  should  be  made  at  least 
sovereign — that  is,  independent  of  Great  Britain — and  com- 
pelled to  enter  into  commercial  and  definite  offensive  and  de- 
fensive alliances  with  us;  the  forts  along  our  borders  disman- 
tled and  all  plans  to  oppose  us  at  any  future  time  set  aside. 
Again,  all  of  the  West  Indies,  so  it  was  argued,  now  controlled 
by  European  powers,  should  have  been  exacted  or  made  inde- 
pendent under  our  protection  so  as  not  to  fall  into  the  hands  of 
our  enemies  iiv  the  future.  Should  not,  asked  some,  a  halt  have 
been  called  to  European  aggression  in  China,  the  open  door 
insisted  upon?  .  .  .  The  seas  should  have  been  made  abso- 
lutely neutral — policed  by  America,  along  with  others. 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  31 

A  great,  even  dominant,  merchant  marine  should  have  been 
built  up.  Why  the  expenditure  of  endless  blood  and  treasure, 
with  no  definite  strength  added  to  the  point  of  view — which 
the  United  States  represents — the  right  of  her  ideas  as  well 
as  those  of  other  people  to  prosper  and  grow  strong? 

But  witness  what  was  actually  done,  where  our  chief  interests 
lay:  Belgium,  a  country  that  had  never  been  a  completely 
sovereign  State  with  rights  which  were  inalienable,  but  a  State 
which  was  the  product  of  the  fears  of  Europe,  commanding  our 
sympathies  as  though  it  had  been  individual  and  free  through- 
out history.  It  was  torn  from  Holland  by  England  and 
France  only  as  recently  as  1830.  England  and  France  chose 
its  reigning  house — the  English  Queen's  uncle,  who  was  speed- 
ily married  to  the  daughter  of  the  King  of  France.  Yet  with 
Ireland,  India,  Egypt,  the  Philippines,  the  Boer  Republic  and 
other  violated  lands  and  nationalities  before  us,  the  woes  of 
this  one  country  developed  our  greatest  interest.  Japan  guar- 
anteed the  neutrality  of  Korea,  but  annexed  it  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  powers.  England,  before  our  very  eyes,  sup- 
pressed attempts  at  "self-determination  by  smaller  nations  of 
their  rights"  in  Egypt,  Ireland,  India,  the  Boer  Republic.  Yet 
we  thought  nothing,  or  at  least  did  nothing.  Yet  the  Bal- 
kans, for  some  peculiar  reason  not  easily  to  be  explained, 
aroused  another  sentimental  emotion  in  us.  Although  one 
would  have  said  the  interest  of  America  in  the  question  of 
what  should  become  of  Russia,  Turkey  and  the  Balkans  was 
not  direct,  and  from  an  old-time  practical  and  political  point  of 
view  never  could  be,  yet  America  interfered  there  as  else- 
where, laying  down,  or  attempting  to,  a  rule  for  the  future 
organization  of  Europe  (self-determination  of  nations!),  and 
that  without  any  referendum  to  the  American  voter,  any  def- 
inite constitutional  inquiry  as  to  what  he  thought  of  all  this. 

Yet  the  neglect  of  the  latter,  most  important  in  a  self- 
determining  democracy  or  republic,  one  would  suppose,  was 


32   SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

passed  over  as  nothing,  while  it  was  assumed  or  preached  by 
those  in  the  lead,  and  in  the  face  of  much  repressed  grumbling, 
that  we  were  engaged  unquestionably  with  those  who  were 
nearest  to  and  best  for  us  intellectually,  spiritually  and  in 
every  other  way,  nations  which  would  seek,  or  had  invariably 
sought  our  welfare  in  the  past.  But  history,  of  course,  dem- 
onstrated that  this  was  not  true  and  that  such  alliances  were 
only  momentarily  beneficial,  if  at  all,  and  later  were  broken 
without  so  much  as  a  by-your-leave  or  a  farewell.  But  did 
this  serve  to  alter  the  state  of  public  feeling  or  illusion?  By 
no  means.  In  so  far  as  England  was  concerned  it  appeared 
to  strengthen  it,  although  this  was  the  first  time  she  had  ever 
been  on  our  side  (1776,  1812,  1865,  1896);  (1897-8,  the 
Boer  War).  In  all  those  instances  we  were  anything  but  pro- 
British.  So  again  with  France  in  1788  and  1815,  when  we 
practically  declared  war  on  her  in  favor  of  England,  although 
she  had  reason  to  expect  our  sympathy  and  aid.  Our  attitude 
toward  Italy  has  varied,  as  it  has  toward  Russia:  now  friendly, 
now  the  reverse.  Taking  into  consideration  the  brevity  of 
all  international  alliances  one  would  have  supposed  that  it 
would  have  been  the  imperative  duty  of  American  statesmen 
to  make  sure  that  in  the  course  of  a  temporary  alliance  with 
European  powers  the  best  interests  of  the  American  nation 
would  not  have  been  imperiled,  but  being  powerful  and  opti- 
mistic we  assumed  that  our  interests  were  safe  enough,  or,  if 
not,  that  we  could  make  them  so,  and  let  it  go  at  that.  But 
supposing  we  had  not  been  so  powerful?  Would  God,  Justice, 
Mercy,  Truth,  Progress  and  a  number  of  other  things  invoked 
during  the  great  argument,  have  been  on  our  side?  All 
failure,  some  one  has  said,  is  due  to  but  two  things:  weakness 
and  error.  Suppose  we  had  been  weak?  Or  foolish? 

A  singular  thing  in  connection  with  this  same  great  war 
and  the  American  people,  their  history,  is  the  attitude  of  this 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  33 

nation  toward  the  French,  at  this  time  and  earlier.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  war  America — Christian  America — was  de- 
cidedly opposed  to  the  French,  on  moral  and  intellectual 
grounds,  their  literature,  their  art,  their  stage,  their  vile  ten- 
dencies to  naturalism  in  thought  and  deed.  Even  before  this, 
at  the  beginning  of  our  history,  the  original  Colonists,  al- 
though of  various  nationalities — English,  French,  Dutch,  Swed- 
ish, Spanish — were  finally  consolidated  under  English  rule  and 
a  fairly  systematic  warfare  waged  against  the  French  and  the 
Indians,  whom  both  the  French  and  the  English  were  employ- 
ing by  turns  in  their  contest  for  supremacy.  Yet  later,  at  the 
time  of  the  dispute  between  the  English  and  the  American 
Colonies,  which  ended  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  French  sym- 
pathy, due  to  ancient  antipathy  to  England  as  well  as  the 
intense  opposition  to  autocratic  oppression  in  France,  drew  the 
Americans  and  the  French  together  in  a  bond  of  sympathy. 
The  French  sent  various  Generals  and  Admirals  (Rocham- 
beau,  Lafayette,  Count  d'Estaing,  Count  de  Grasse)  to  help 
the  Americans  on  land  and  sea.  Yet  in  1788-9,  when  France 
and  Spain  declared  war  on  England,  and  especially  later  (after 
the  French  Revolution  in  1789)  when  the  French  were  strug- 
gling to  maintain  their  democratic  independence  and  England 
was  seeking  to  put  the  Bourbon  rulers  back  on  the  throne 
of  France,  do  you  believe  that  American  sympathy  was  with 
the  French?  If  you  do,  you  don't  know  American  history.  Un- 
der the  offensive  and  defensive  agreement  or  treaty  entered 
into  between  France  and  the  Colonies  in  1778,  when  the  latter 
were  struggling  for  their  independence,  it  was  confidently  ex- 
pected by  the  French  that  the  Americans  would  help  them 
against  England,  but  nothing  of  the  sort  followed.  When,  in 
the  belief  that  America  must  sympathize  with  France,  "demo- 
cratic" societies,  after  the  French  model,  were  organized 
throughout  the  States,  and  later  Genet,  the  French  Minister  to 
America,  attempted  to  fit  our  privateers  on  American  soil  and 


34  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

to  establish  admiralty  ports  for  the  condemnation  of  prizes, 
there  was  great  opposition  to  this.  Only  read  the  history  of 
that  period  (Burgess:  "The  Middle  Period";  Babcock: 
"American  Nationality";  Hart:  "American  History  Told  by 
Contemporaries").  America,  according  to  this  new  attitude, 
was  now  to  look  out  for  itself,  and  in  consonance  with  this  in 
1793  Washington  issued  his  famous  Neutrality  Proclamation, 
leaving  France  to  take  care  of  herself.  After  the  issuance  of 
the  Proclamation,  Genet,  still  believing  that  American  sym- 
pathy must  be  with  France,  appealed  to  the  people  and 
openly  defied  the  Government.  His  recall  followed,  of  course. 

Then  followed  a  very  curious  state  of  affairs.  The  French 
Revolutionists,  angered  by  the  official  attitude  of  America,  fell 
to  attacking  American  shipping,  looking  upon  it  as  a  hostile 
power  aiding  England.  American  commissionaires,  sent  to 
adjust  our  relations  with  France,  were  ignored  and  represen- 
tatives of  the  Revolutionists  (or  so  it  was  claimed),  using  the 
initials  "X  Y  Z,"  demanded  tribute  and  a  bribe.  Hence  the 
famous  comment  of  William  Pinckney,  the  American  lawyer 
and  statesman,  who  said  "Millions  for  defense,  but  not  one  cent 
for  tribute."  And  that  against  our  late  ally,  France! 

President  Adams  laid  the  correspondence  before  Congress, 
and  the  whole  country  was  aroused.  War  with  France  was 
thought  to  be  inevitable  and  (1798)  Washington  was  reap- 
pointed  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army.  Owing  to  the 
activity  of  French  sympathizers  in  America  and  rabid  criti- 
cisms in  the  newspapers  of  the  Government's  stand  in  this 
matter,  the  Federalists,  who  were  then  in  power  and  who  had 
no  sympathy  for  France,  secured  the  passage  (1798)  of  the 
famous  Alien  and  Sedition  Laws.  These  laws  gave  the  Gov- 
ernment power  to  banish  "foreigners"  (meaning  the  French) 
from  the  country  and  to  suppress  obnoxious  newspapers.  Actual 
warfare  with  France  went  on  upon  the  sea!  But  these  laws, 
being  against  the  then  "fundamental  ideas"  of  Americans  in 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  35 

regard  to  free  speech  and  the  right  of  asylum  to  immigrants, 
were  regarded  by  enough  of  the  people  as  proving  all  the 
charges  of  tyranny  urged  against  the  Federalists,  and  at  the 
next  election  (1800)  they  were  defeated.  In  the  meantime  Vir- 
ginia and  Kentucky  had  resolved,  owing  to  these  same  Alien 
and  Sedition  Laws,  that  a  State  might  nullify  a  law  of  the 
United  States.  Congress,  because  of  French  attacks  on  our 
shipping,  formulated  the  "Spoliation  Claims,"  and  it  was  not 
until  Napoleon  (1800),  as  First  Consul  of  France,  agreed  to 
abandon  the  French  Claim  that  America  was  still  bound  by 
the  treaty  of  1778  to  aid  her  that  these  latter  were  abandoned 
and  peace  reached.  In  other  words,  we  refused  France  aid  in 
her  most  trying  hour.  Yet  twelve  years  later,  because  of  Eng- 
land's continuous  attacks  upon  our  ships  and  seamen,  trying  to 
prevent  our  dealing  with  France  in  any  way,  we  went  to  war 
with  her — only  she  did  not  quit  until  the  victory  over  Na- 
poleon removed  the  cause  of  her  alleged  grievances.  One 
hundred  years  later,  as  we  have  just  seen  (1914-19),  although 
opposition  to  France  on  moral  grounds  had  been  steadily 
growing  in  America,  still  in  the  contest  with  Germany  all  the 
refused  sympathy  and  gratitude  of  1800  was  revived  and 
France  became  once  more  the  object  of  our  tenderest  solicitude. 
So  much  for  national  moods  and  gratitudes. 

Another  curious  phase  of  the  late  great  war,  as  of  all  coun- 
tries and  wars  perhaps,  but  one  which  illustrates  the  American 
temperament  rather  clearly,  was  the  attitude  of  America  to  one 
and  another  phase  of  it,  the  psychologic  flounderings  and  back 
somersaults,  as  it  were,  concerning  one  problem  and  another. 
For  one  thing,  as  we  all  perhaps  remember,  the  preliminary 
internal  contest  was  for  peace  at  any  price  practically,  and 
any  one  who  suggested  mobilizing  a  large  army  for  self-de- 
fense (if  nothing  more)  was,  if  not  a  traitor,  something  of  an 
undesirable  citizen.  Mr.  Wilson,  if  you  will  recall,  was  elected 


36  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

the  second  time  on  the  slogan  "He  Kept  Us  Out  of  War"; 
also  before  we  entered  the  war  we  were  told  what  a  blessing 
it  was  in  one  way,  commercially  at  least.  Later,  as  Germany 
appeared  to  be  winning  and  America  was  actually  threatened, 
the  whole  world  had  to  be  made  "safe  for  democracy,"  air 
order  so  large  that  publicity  was  quietly  refused  it  in  all  coun- 
tries outside  the  United  States.  But  that  was  the  sweet  milk 
fed  to  Americans.  Later  still,  when  it  came  to  actually  de- 
claring war,  although  this  is  a  republic  and  the  people  are  sup- 
posed to  have  a  voice  in  deciding  that  which  they  do,  no  will- 
ingness on  the  part  of  the  authorities,  executive  or  legislative, 
to  refer  the  matter  back  to  the  people  for  a  vote,  was  in  evi- 
dence. 

And  once  war  was  declared,  the  people  were  allowed  or 
compelled  to  "take  out"  whatever  opposition  they  might  feel 
in  private  thought,  not  public  or  open  opposition.  It  was 
openly  admitted  that  a  referendum  might  have  prevented  a 
declaration  of  war,  yet  afterwards  public  complaint  was  rug- 
gedly suppressed — by  the  courts  and  officials,  if  not  by  the 
whole  people,  astounding  farces  by  way  of  law  being  perpe- 
trated. Still  later  on,  when  it  came  to  "raising"  troops,  money 
and  supplies  (controlling  food),  volunteer  service  in  the  first 
of  these  fields  was  swiftly  abandoned,  and  conscription, 
with  all  which  that  implied  in  the  way  of  force  and  putting 
down  opposition  to  it,  free  speech  as  well  as  free  action,  was 
used.  "Public  sentiment,"  as  fostered  by  an  administrative 
press  bureau,  to  say  nothing  of  much  foreign  propaganda,  con- 
trolled or  overawed  the  papers.  Overawing  sentences,  such  as 
forty  years  in  the  penitentiary,  for  circulating  a  pamphlet  in 
opposition  to  the  current  will  of  the  Government,  were  uni- 
formly handed  down  in  all  parts  of  the  nation  by  a  judiciary 
whose  independence,  sanctity  and  what  not  were  supposed  to 
be  the  bulwark  of  American  liberty.  But  at  whose  request? 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  37 

By  what  authority?  The  necessity  of  strict  and  impartial 
justice? 

I  am  not  quarreling  with  the  process;  I  am  showing  the 
thin  line  of  difference  between  autocracy  and  democracy  where 
necessity  or  passing  opinion  favors  one  course  of  conduct  or 
another.  Later  on,  when  suggestions  in  regard  to  food-saving 
were  rather  freely  ignored,  the  "suggestions"  became  not  only 
suggestions  but  restrictions  and,  to  quote  the  food  administra- 
tor, "the  restrictions  will  be  voluntary,  but  any  evasion  will 
result  in  compulsory  enforcement."  Similarly  in  connection 
with  bond-selling;  the  people  were  to  lend  and  lend  and  lend 
because  they  loved  their  country,  but  (I  am  quoting  a  leading 
administrative  organ)  "the  period  has  arrived  (October,  1918) 
to  discontinue  wooing  and  soft-soaping.  God  help  the  man 
who  is  found  with  filled  pockets  if  the  war  goes  on  because  of  a 
financial  failure  here." 

And  it  was  not  alone  in  such  matters  where  some  inde- 
pendence or  at  least  latitude  might  have  been  presupposed, 
but  it  extended  to  a  press  censorship  and  an  intolerance  of 
opposing  opinion  which  compared  rather  favorably  to  darkest 
days  of  Russian  autocracy.  Although  America  is  always 
naive  and  "free,"  its  innumerable  blessings  of  tolerance  and 
the  like  prated  of,  still  there  was  but  one  publicly  endured 
opinion  in  relation  to  the  conduct  of  the  war,  and  that  was  pro- 
war.  Any  other  form  of  thought  was  rigidly  put  down, 
although  in  England  and  France  one  might  say  one's  say  with 
all  but  destructive  freedom.  One  woman  in  New  York  was 
actually  fined  for  saying  that  "Ireland  was  as  good  as  Eng- 
land any  day!"  A  booklet  entitled  "Shall  Morgan  Own  the 
Earth?"  and  intended  to  show  how  the  war  was  profiting 
some  individuals,  was  first  investigated  by  the  Department  of 
Justice  and  pronounced  immune,  then  later  the  author  was 
urged  "as  a  patriotic  duty"  to  change  the  title;  still  later, 
even  under  the  milder  title,  it  was  refused  the  privilege  of  the 


38  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER. 

mails  by  the  Postoffice  Department  and  the  author  warned 
that  "to  circulate  it  would  subject  you  to  ten  years  in  prison. 
You  know  it  violates  the  Espionage  Law." 

And  to  what  astounding  fol-de-rol  in  regard  to  the  conduct 
of  all  wars  in  the  future,  if  not  in  the  past,  were  we  not 
treated  I  There  were  to  be  no  more  brutal  wars  of  any 
kind  anywhere.  Everl  Oddly  enough,  the  horrors  of  the 
Civil  War,  especially  the  part  of  the  Northern  soldiers  in  it, 
were  entirely  forgotten;  also  the  "water  cure"  and  "Hell  Roar- 
ing Jake  Smith"  of  the  Philippine  campaign  were  forgotten — 
those  natives,  for  instance,  who  were  stood  up  in  rows  and 
shot  down  one  after  another  by  an  officer  with  a  revolver 
or  who  had  water  poured  down  their  throats  and  into  their 
noses  until  they  died  of  strangulation,  because  they  could  not, 
or  did  not  choose  to,  reveal  that  which  possibly  they  did  not 
even  know.  Nations  as  well  as  individuals  have  short  mem- 
ories. Before  we  entered  the  war  it  really  looked  as  though 
a  great  war  must  necessarily  be  fought  with  tooth-brushes,  so 
great  was  the  opposition  to  brutality.  Later  we  were  never  to 
fight  any  more  wars  at  all,  or  if  we  did  it  was  all  to  be  ended  by 
one  war.  A  little  later  one  of  our  greatest  agonies  was  that  we 
could  not  visit  on  the  enemy  something  much  more  terrible 
than  they  were  visiting  on  us — national  annihilation,  no  less. 
We  could  not  live  in  peace  with  autocracy — although,  for- 
sooth, we  could  live  in  peace  with  the  Japanese,  the  Chinese, 
the  Imperial  Russian  Government  before  it  fell,  England  in 
India,  England  in  Egypt — anything  and  everything,  indeed, 
save  with  a  nation  that  did  not  fight  as  we  did.  Never  again 
were  the  erring  nations  to  be  restored  to  their  old  place  in  the 
world.  Between  chortles  over  an  immense  trade  increase,  a 
finally  united  railway  system,  new  and  better  methods  of  food 
control,  intensive  agriculture,  lessons  in  self-denial  and  thought, 
still,  and  idiotic  as  it  may  seem,  the  war  was  an  unmixed  evil; 
the  Germans  were  all  wrong.  "The  passage  of  a  thousand 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  39 

years  will  not  obliterate  the  memory  of  Germany's  crime.  She 
will  get  her  good  name  back  when  Judas  does."  (I  am  quot- 
ing from  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer  of  March,  1918.)  And  this 
in  the  face  of  the  above-recited  blessings  pointed  out  in  this 
very  paper!  What  are  you  to  say  for  such  a  ragbag  point  of 
view,  a  national  intelligence  that  can  blow  hot  and  cold  with 
the  same  breath? 

Actually,  it  looked  for  a  time  as  though  America  were 
suffering  from  pernicious  mental  anemia.  Its  whole  original 
significance  as  a  forward-pushing,  clear-thinking  nation  ap- 
peared to  have  been  clouded  over,  and,  not  unlike  the  bee 
and  the  coral  insect  which  apparently  serve  only  one  or  two 
purposes  in  life — the  one  to  gather  honey  and  pollenize  the 
flowers,  the  other  to  build  a  coral  island — that  it  had  been 
invented  by  Nature  to  devise  and  manufacture  machinery 
which  it  should  never  have  the  courage  or  brains  to  apply 
to  the  limits  of  their  possibilities.  It  was  as  though  the  Ger- 
mans and  the  English  and  the  Japanese,  seeing  the  peculiar 
gifts  and  mental  limitations  of  the  American,  were  to  be  per- 
mitted to  use  his  gifts,  quite  as  we  use  the  stored  labor  of 
the  bee  or  the  coral  insect,  and  leave  him  to  go  on  moiling  in 
his  brainless  mechanistic  way.  For  the  average  American,  who 
could  so  easily  invent  a  flying  machine,  a  submarine,  a  range- 
finder  for  guns,  a  revolving  turret,  a  steel-protected  battleship, 
a  steamboat,  and  what  not,  was  being  urged  to  believe,  at 
first,  that  he  had  no  heart  for  their  use  and  that  he  was  "too 
proud  to  fight"  or  lacked  the  courage  to  face  the  horrible 
grinding  necessities  of  life;  later  that  he  was  the  greatest 
fighter  of  all.  Only,  having  proved  that,  he  was  still  to  be- 
lieve that  he  was  here  only  to  save  the  world,  never  by  any 
chance  to  further  his  own  interests.  His  great  inventions 
were  to  be  put  aside  like  toys  or  sold  to  others  or  reserved  for 
moral  purposes  only. 

For  note,  up  to  the  hour  of  sheer  tragic  compulsion,  every- 


40   SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

thing  was,  and  no  doubt  still  is,  to  the  average  American,  i 
matter  of  morality,  and  morality,  take  note,  in  the  limitec 
sense  in  which  he  understood  and  appreciated  morals  up  t 
that  time.  You  might  invent  a  battleship  wherewith  to  defem 
yourself  and  kill  other  people,  but  if  you  used  it  for  any  bu 
a  Christian  or  moral  purpose,  or  the  enemy  who  was  non 
Christian  got  it  (and  used  it)  it  was  terrible,  shameful,  a  mora 
crime,  not  to  be  blotted  out  by  a  thousand  years  of  expiation 
To  an  American,  a  machine,  however  deadly  in  intention,  o 
its  method  of  slaying,  was  not  to  be  used  unless  some  dis 
tinctly  moral  end  was  to  be  achieved  by  it.  And  he  was  t< 
judge  as  to  the  moral  end  involved.  But,  to  his  horror,  he  wa 
finding  and  did  find  that  the  savage  and  the  pagan  could  ge 
hold  of  his  machine  gun  or  his  flying  machine,  or  submarine 
or  his  battleship,  or  chemic  invention  of  any  kind,  and  turn 
it  on  him  without  any  moral  compunction  whatsoever — anc 
to  his  still  further  Christian  horror  it  worked  just  as  wel 
for  the  savage  or  the  pagan  as  it  did  for  him.  Nature,  o 
God,  did  not  prevent  the  submarine  from  discharging  a  tor 
pedo  at  an  unarmed  merchantman  any  more  than  it  aided  th 
firing  of  one  from  a  Christian  submarine  at  a  pagan  battle 
ship.  In  short,  Nature  seemed  to  be  without  Christianity  o 
Christian  morals,  and  this  shocked  the  American  terribly.  Hi 
found  that  he  had  to  lay  aside,  for  the  time  being  anyhow 
his  fine-spun  theories  and  fight  in  any  way  that  he  could 
and  he  proceeded  to  do  so.  Whereupon,  he  won.  But  to  th 
American,  nevertheless,  and  in  spite  of  all  this.  Nature  was  anc 
is  still  strictly  moral.  She  has  fixed,  definite  and  Christiai 
ways  by  which  she  works.  Whenever  the  good  American  bj 
any  chance  discovers  that  Nature  is  betraying  him  in  anj 
way,  not  working  according  to  the  code  as  handed  down  a 
Sinai,  or  the  Mount  in  Palestine,  he  is  horror-stricken!  What 
Nature  not  working  according  to  the  Ten  Commandments. 
The  weak  do  not  inherit  the  earth?  "Thou  shalt  not  kill"  no 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  41 

a  universal  law?  "Thou  shalt  not  steal  or  commit  adultery" 
not  chemic  or  psychic  truth  running  through  all  nature?  Who 
says  so?  Where  is  our  God  who  told  us  these  things?  Why 
does  he  not  act  in  our  behalf?  Why  does  he  not  confound  the 
enemy  in  his  blasphemies,  destroy  him,  for  flouting  these 
fundamental  religious  truths? 

But  behold,  God  does  not,  or  did  not  act  until  the  Amer- 
icans, bestirring  themselves  and  laying  aside  their  theorizing, 
proceeded  to  fight  as  do  the  heathen.  Then  and  then  only, 
with  the  moral  and  exegetic  rust  rubbed  off  and  the  good 
American,  standing  up  vital  and  dangerous,  did  the  tide  turn. 
Up  to  that  hour  the  tide  was  indifferently  going  against 
him.  The  heathen,  noting  his  mood,  had  picked  up  the 
American's  subtle  inventions  where  he  laid  them  down — fine, 
powerful,  complete  but  immoral  instruments — and  had  used 
them  for  "immoral"  purposes.  And  the  machines  and  the 
schemes  of  the  American,  moral  though  he  thought  they  were, 
worked  just  as  well  for  the  unmoral  heathen  as  for  himself. 
To  his  pathetic  horror  and  utter  Christian  decay  he  found  that 
if  he  was  to  succeed  at  all  he  must  not  only  invent  subtle 
and  deadly  things,  but  apply  them  in  the  same  spirit  in  which 
he  invented  them  or  other  people  would — horrific  Nature, 
working  through  other  non-Christian  nations  quite  as  effec- 
tively as  it  worked  through  good  Christian  Americans.  In  other 
words,  Nature  was  not  Christian,  not  moral,  in  the  sense  that  a 
race  or  an  organized  society  working  to  protect  its  selfish  inter- 
nal arrangements  and  comforts  may  be,  and  no  amount  of  ener- 
getic spouting  on  this  score  helped  him  in  the  least.  Nature,  or 
God,  or  what  you  will,  showed  that  it  cared  no  whit,  not  a  snap 
of  her  or  his  fingers,  what  becomes  of  man  or  an  American 
with  his  theories,  religious  or  otherwise,  unless  he  was  able 
to  protect  himself.  A  man  or  a  nation  had  to  have  wealth 
and  power  to  survive,  and  if  the  Germans  had  had  more 
power  they  would  have  survived,  methods  or  means  to  the  con- 


42   SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

trary  notwithstanding.  Ten  thousand  pagan  shrines  did  not 
save  Rome  from  the  pacifist  destruction  which  Christianity 
involved.  Ten  million  Christian  churches  spouting  peace  and 
non-warlike  ways  could  not  and  did  not  save  America  or  any 
other  country  from  a  nation  which  put  its  faith  in  war  and 
the  ruthless  forces  of  Nature  herself.  Only  greater  war  on  our 
part  could  do  that,  and  did. 

But  let  us  consider  some  of  America's  other  equally  potent 
and  definite  moods  or  opinions  in  regard  to  some  other  things: 
the  negro  for  one.  By  the  year  1700  slavery,  which  up  to 
that  time  had  been  more  or  less  a  matter  of  individual  pref- 
erence or  taste,  there  being  no  general  Colonial  agreement  in 
regard  to  it,  had  become  an  economic  institution  in  Colonial 
life.  A  legalized  status  of  Indian,  white  and  negro  servants 
had  preceded  slavery  in  almost  all,  if  not  all,  the  English- 
maintained  colonies;  but  apparently  it  paid  to  make  them 
slaves,  and  they  were  so  made  in  spite  of  the  legal  fact  that 
they  were  not.  Later  the  difference  in  the  industries  of  the 
several  States  made  slavery  more  desirable  in  some  States  than 
in  others,  and  then  the  natural  boundary  lines  of  the  slave 
territory  began  to  develop.  Georgia  and  South  Carolina  espe- 
cially were  clamoring  for  slave-labor  on  the  tobacco,  cotton  and 
rice  plantations;  whereas  in  the  North  it  was  found  to  be  an 
unsatisfactory  system,  and  so  there  was  early  developed  in 
those  Colonies  a  sentiment  against  a  negro  population  and 
the  institution  of  slavery  in  general.  It  cannot  be  said  that 
this  was  due  entirely  to  the  economic  disadvantage  of  keep- 
ing slaves  in  the  North — there  always  existed  some  opposition 
to  slavery  in  the  minds  of  individuals— but  would  it  have  been 
effective  if  slave  labor  had  been  profitable — as  profit- 
able, say,  as  it  was  in  the  South?  Jefferson,  for  in- 
stance, wrote  a  denunciation  of  slavery  into  his  draft 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  but  later,  owing  to  its 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  43 

probable  effect  on  slave-holding  Colonies,  erased  it.  And  ne- 
groes were  freely  lynched  and  burned  in  New  York  City  in 
1712  and  1741  because  they  were  suspected  of  a  desire  to 
rebel  against  slavery.  A  public  slave-market  was  established 
in  New  York  City  as  early  as  1709! 

Yet  to  hear  the  average  Christian  American  of  today  or 
earlier  talk  of  slavery  and  its  horrors  and  the  great  war  fought 
to  free  the  negro,  you  might  assume  that  he  liked  him.  Far 
from  it.  Although  a  Northern  Congress  (March  2d,  1867) 
attempted  to  impose  universal  manhood  suffrage  on  the  South 
and  (1875)  passed  a  law  forbidding  discrimination  against 
negroes  in  inns,  public  conveyances,  theaters  and  other  places, 
aimed  principally  at  the  South,  still  the  negro  has  never  been 
accepted  in  the  spirit  of  these  laws  either  in  the  North  or 
South.  In  any  residence  neighborhood  anywhere  in  America, 
when  the  black  man  begins  to  come  in  the  whites  move  out. 
Excellent  as  he  may  be,  and  I  have  known  many  who  were 
wholly  admirable,  he  is  not  even  wanted  in  the  same  churches 
or  schools.  And  the  feeling,  instead  of  growing  less,  becomes 
stronger.  Almost  daily  he  is  burned  alive  somewhere  in  Amer- 
ica, and  for  all  but  indifferent  crimes.  America  may  have  fought 
and  bled  for  his  physical  freedom,  but  she  does  not  want  him 
about;  and  when,  as  in  1917  in  East  St.  Louis,  employers  at- 
tempted to  use  him  to  break  a  strike,  he  was  murdered  (117  of 
him  in  that  instance) ,  his  homes  burned,  his  wives  and  children 
driven  out  of  the  region;  and  in  the  far  South,  where  one  of  him 
has  even  so  much  as  insulted  a  deputy  sheriff,  he  has  been  done 
to  death,  he  and  his  entire  family.  Yet  the  American  has  no 
plan  for  the  negro — his  threatening  future  here.  He  merely 
allows  the  question  to  go  begging,  trusting  to  luck,  no  doubt. 
Puzzle:  does  the  American  citizen  want  the  negro,  or  doesn't 
he? 

•  •*•*»• 

Take  once  more  the  matter  of  the  American  and  the  idle, 


44  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

greedy  or  predatory  rich,  as  you  please,  and  their  attitude 
toward  America,  all  being  citizens  of  the  same  land.  Because 
a  Colonial  American  once  wrote  it  down  in  our  Declaration  of 
Independence  that  men  are  created  free  and  equal,  that  they 
are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  entitled  to  life,  liberty  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness  at  the  hands  of  their  fellow-citizens  and 
the  world,  the  American  ever  since  has  been  amazed  and 
troubled  by  the  curious  human  or  chemic  contradictions  of  and 
oppositions  to  this,  not  only  in  others  but  himself.  Struggling 
along  trying  to  be  free  and  happy  he  finds  that  he  is  constantly 
interfered  with  by  others  who  are  doing  the  same  thing,  and 
that,  Declaration  of  Independence  or  no  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, the  curious  fact  remains  that  the  strong,  the  ruth- 
less, the  shrewd  get  along  as  well  here  as  they  do  anywhere 
and  that  they  are  constantly  developing  ways  and  means  of 
undermining  him  and  foreshortening  his  peace  and  happiness 
in  favor  of  their  own. 

Thus,  in  illustration:  (i)  A  Federal  judge  (1919)  ruled  that 
although  Congress  (1918)  had  forbidden  any  one  to  compel 
children  of  ten  or  more  years  of  age  to  labor  in  cotton  mills, 
still  it  was  unconstitutional  for  Congress  so  to  forbid  and 
those  who  wished  could  so  employ  children.  Result,  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  children  returned  to  eleven  hours  per 
day  factory  labor. 

(2)  A  New  Jersey  judge,  one  Gumere  by  name,  ruled  (1900) 
that  a  child's  life,  lost  in  an  accident  on  a  railroad  or  other 
public  conveyance,  was  not  worth  more  than  one  dollar,  the 
child  not  being  as  yet  a  source  of  profit  to  its  parents. 

(3)  An  Ohio  circuit  judge   (William  H.  Taft,  afterwards 
President  of  the  United  States)   ruled   (1893)   that  quitting 
work  without  the  consent  of  the  employer  was  a  criminal 
offense  on  the  part  of  an  employee. 

(4)  The  Federal  Supreme  Court  ruled  (1908)  that  arbitra- 
tion in  labor  disputes  is  unconstitutional,  therefore  something 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  45 

which  an  employer  may  not  even  enter  upon  with  his  em- 
ployees. 

(5)  The  Oregon  Supreme  Court  decided  (1903)  that  a  citi- 
zen might  be  legally  held  in  duress  (jailed)  for  one  month 
without  trial — this  in  the  face  of  explicit  prohibition  on  the 
part  of  the  American  Constitution. 

(6)  The  Massachusetts  Supreme  Court  held  in  one  dispute 
(1906)  that  where  conditions  are  unsatisfactory  there  is  no 
remedy  open  to  labor  save  by  individual  and  personal  suit; 
union  or  combined  action  being  illegal  or  unconstitutional. 

(7)  Four  magnates,  two  of  them  controlling  the  production 
and  two  the  distribution  of  milk  for  and  in  New  York  City, 
decided  (January  10,  1919)  that  since  they  could  not  agree  as 
to  how  the  profits  of  the  sale  of  milk  in  New  York  City 
were  to  be  divided  among  them,  New  York  was  to  have  no 
milk  until  they  could  agree.    Time  of  city  without  milk,  one 
month. 

(8)  One  Barnet  Baff,  wholesale  chicken  merchant  in  New 
York  City,  was  murdered  because  he  would  not  enter  upon  a 
scheme  with  other  chicken-wholesalers  to  fix  prices  and  extort 
a  higher  profit  from  the  public.    Secondary  executors,  but  not 
primary  instigators  or  murderers,  were  caught  and  electro- 
cuted. 

(9)  In  Lachnor  vs.  New  York  (198  U.  S.  45)  a  majority 
of  the  judges  of  the  New  York  Court  of  Appeals  held  uncon- 
stitutional a  law  limiting  the  hours  of  labor  of  bakers,  many 
of  whom  (women)  were  forced  to  toil  twelve  hours  daily  in 
cellars  to  earn  wages  barely  sufficient  to  keep  them  alive. 
The  Court  held  that  this  law  was  void  because  it  interfered  with 
freedom  of  contract. 

(10)  In  Ives  vs.  South  Buffalo  Ry.  Co.  (94  N.  E.  R.  431), 
a  case  in  which  a  railroad  employee,  crippled  for  life  while 
at  work  and  without  "contributory  negligence,"  sued  for  recom- 
pense, the  New  York  Court  of  Appeals  unanimously  decided 


46   SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

that  the  law  under  which  the  suit  was  brought  was  unconsti- 
tutional. The  judges  admitted  the  injustice,  since  the  man 
was  helpless,  but  held  the  Constitution  responsible. 

.  .  .  One  might  thus  go  forward  for  pages.  I  merely  cite 
these  in  order  to  present  a  few  definite  instances.  The  truth 
is  that  while  the  average  American  imagines  he  is  better  looked 
after  and  more  free  here  than  he  would  be  elsewhere,  it  is  more 
a  matter  of  thought  than  anything  else.  As  to  his  daily  earn- 
ing and  living  capacity,  while  it  is  true  that  he  gets  more  pay 
he  also  pays  more  for  what  he  buys.  A  rising  scale  of  wages 
has  so  regularly  been  accompanied  by  a  lowering  of  the  pur- 
chasing power  of  the  dollar  that  he  has  not  been  much  com- 
forted by  higher  wages.  In  fact,  the  National  Department 
of  Labor  (February,  1919),  after  studying  family  budgets  in 
various  cities  of  the  country,  announced  that  the  then  ex- 
orbitant cost  of  necessities  bore  heaviest  on  incomes  of  one 
thousand  dollars  or  less,  although  five  per  cent  of  the  popula- 
tion controlled  ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  wealth  of  the  nation. 
And  one  should  further  note  the  rising  Protection  policy  of  a 
hundred  years,  under  which  the  trusts  flourished  without  any 
notable  increase  of  wages  to  the  local  consumer,  and  the  local 
consumer  paid  uniformly  higher  prices  than  those  paid  by  for- 
eigners for  the  same  grade  of  goods,  often  the  very  same  goods 
made  here  and  shipped  abroad.  This  protection  explains  the 
American  multi-millionaire;  also  the  American  beggar 
and  his  slum.  It  also  explains  the  profiteer.  If  the 
average  American  has  had  a  little  more  of  food  and 
clothes  than  the  men  of  some  other  countries,  he  has  also  been 
confronted  by  the  very  irritating  spectacle  of  thousands  upon 
thousands  who  have  so  much  more  than  he  has  or  can  get. 
He  has  been  made  to  appear  as  poor  as  any  churchmouse  any- 
where, and,  worst  of  all,  his  woes  get  but  small  attention  from 
those  who,  financially  able  to  control  his  only  medium  of  ex- 
pression, the  newspapers,  insist  upon  telling  him  that  he  is  well 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  47 

and  happy.  If  any  one  should  doubt  this,  let  him  consult,  for 
one  thing,  the  report  of  the  Federal  Trade  Commission  ap- 
pointed by  Congress  (Report  handed  down  June,  1918), 
wherein  it  was  charged  and  proved  that  large  exactions  and 
safe  profiteering  permitted  more  than  one  giant  concern  to 
double,  treble,  even  quintuple,  its  capitalization  and  still  earn 
from  100  to  227  per  cent  in  one  instance.  Coal,  valued  at  five 
cents  a  ton  in  the  ground,  was  being  sold  for  twenty-two  dol- 
lars a  ton  in  New  York — not  over  two  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  away.  Milk  was  shoved  up  rapidly  from  seven  to 
seventeen-and-one-half  cents  a  quart,  and  with  no  interference 
on  the  part  of  any  one  and  no  effort  to  pool  the  wasteful  com- 
petition and  duplication  of  systems  which,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  offered  as  an  excuse  for  the  necessity  of  the  more  than 
100  per  cent  increase.  Wheat,  potatoes,  meat,  oil,  sugar  rose 
in  proportion.  There  was  no  corresponding  increase  in  the 
wages,  save  to  unionized  labor  (which  was  the  only  form  of 
labor  in  a  position  to  demand  a  just  share,  and  which  con- 
stituted but  ten  per  cent  of  all  employed).  And  these  had  to 
indulge  in  three  hundred  and  sixty-seven  strikes  in  the  first 
three  years  of  the  war  to  effect  even  so  much  as  a  twenty 
per  cent  increase.  (I  am  quoting  figures  furnished  by  the 
United  States  Bureau  of  Labor.)  When  complaint  was  made, 
one  enthusiastic  retort  on  the  part  of  a  corporation  press  was 
that  the  natural  law  of  supply  and  demand  must  be  allowed  to 
work,  that  interference  with  exhorbitant  prices  meant  curtail- 
ment of  production  at  the  source.  The  poor  producer,  robbed 
of  his  just  right  to  high  prices  under  a  strenuous  demand,  would 
become  discouraged  and  quit!  On  the  other  hand,  the  pro- 
ducer was  constantly  complaining  tKat  he  was  getting  little 
more  than  before,  while  the  rapidly  increasing  cost  of  labor 
was  cited  as  proving  the  need  of  a  from  100  to  a  1000  per 
cent  increase  on  everything — shoes,  clothes,  food,  rent. 

That  is  all  simple  and  interesting  enough  when  one  accepts 


48  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

human  nature  for  what  it  is:  a  thing  of  rough  balances  and 
equations  only  or  a  catch-as-catch-can  struggle  in  which  the 
strong  or  the  shrewd  survive  and  the  weak  go  under.  But 
when,  in  the  same  land  in  which  these  things  occur,  the  air  is 
full  of  a  huge  hubbub  over  the  extreme  merits  of  democracy, 
and  when  at  the  same  time  any  one  who  says  anything  against 
profiteering  or  intimates  that  democracy  as  such  may  be  sub- 
ject to  at  least  some  of  the  faults  of  autocracy  is  looked  upon 
as  an  enemy,  if  not  an  enemy  alien,  it  becomes  slightly  ana- 
chronistic, to  say  the  least. 

•  •••«•• 

It  is  also  a  matter  of  pride  with  most  of  us,  frequently  ex- 
pressed in  disparagement  of  our  European  contemporaries,  that 
we  are  a  nation  of  workers.  To  hold  a  position  in  any  Amer- 
ican community,  so  the  thought  runs,  a  man  must  have  a  job. 
We  do  not  conceal  our  contempt  for  the  chap  who  fails  to  go 
down  to  an  office  or  a  business  every  day.  Often,  of  course, 
our  ostentatious  workers  do  go  down  but  do  very  little  work. 
Still,  somehow  it  is  felt  by  the  public  at  large  that  every  man 
owes  it  to  the  community  or  the  nation  to  put  in  from  six  to 
ten  hours  outside  of  the  residential  district  doing  something, 
if  no  more  than  twiddling  his  thumbs.  Hence  the  huge 
commuting  armies  oscillating  to  and  fro,  between  home  and 
office  or  factory.  And  yet  can  it  be  said  that  American  com- 
mercial activity  is  so  immensely  more  profitable  than  that  of 
any  other  nation?  Or  even  as  much  so?  During  the  late 
great  war  it  was  actually  proved  that  both  Germany  and  Eng- 
land had  shrewder  and  more  profitable  business  schemes  and 
methods.  The  German  plan  for  national  co-operative  buying 
was  one.  Again,  the  superior  efficiency  of  the  Germans  and 
even  the  English  was  one  of  the  facts  which  burst  like  a  flash 
of  lightning  out  of  a  clear  sky  upon  the  astonished  American, 
the  instantaneous  skill  with  which  all  national  resources — food, 
clothing,  transportation,  man-power — were  mobilized  and  put 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  49 

at  the  services  of  the  nation,  the  relative  cheapness  of  it  all, 
the  efficiency  with  which  it  was  maneuvered  once  it  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  Government.  Yet  the  American  business  man  as 
well  as  the  American  executive,  while  English  and  French  Com- 
missionaires were  instructing  our  factory  masters  and  "  Captains 
of  Industry,"  had  been  bustling  down  to  his  desk  each  day,  his 
telephone  to  his  ear,  or  racing  from  one  directors'  meeting  to 
another— and  the  result  to  America  was  the  largest  war  debt 
per  capita  for  time  of  service  in  the  war  and  number  of  men 
involved  of  any  nation  in  the  world,  not  even  excepting  Russia. 
Question:  Is  the  American  business  man  as  efficient  as  we  think 
he  is?  As  honest?  As  patriotic?  Is  he? 

•        •••••• 

Another  curiosity  of  American  character  is,  or  was  before 
the  war,  its  adoration  of  all  things  foreign.  Everything  abroad 
was,  if  it  is  not  now,  excellent,  priceless,  beyond  all  praise  or 
blame;  whereas  anything  native,  or  even  occidental,  was  more 
or  less  worthless  or  inconsiderable — even  such  things  as  the 
Andes  and  Amazon,  as  contrasted  with  the  Alps  and  the  Nile; 
Brazil  and  Argentina,  Mexico  and  the  Canadian  snows  were  as 
nothing  compared  to  Belgium  or  Turkey,  the  Riviera,  Asia, 
Africa.  One  cannot  help  smiling  a  little  at  times  at  the  grand 
manner  with  which  the  only  moderately  equipped  foreigner, 
intellectually  or  otherwise,  has  been  permitted  to  walk  abroad 
in  America  and  either  sniff  at  or  patronize  all  with  which 
he  comes  in  contact  as  though  it  were  nothing.  And  the 
pathetic  desire  of  the  American  to  live  up  to  what  foreigners 
expected  of  him — even  the  waiters  of  France  or  the  middle 
class  or  gentry  of  England.  And  as  for  the  English  lord,  the 
French  or  Italian  count,  the  Austrian  or  even  German  baron, 
the  Spanish  grandee,  the  Russian  prince  or  Turkish  pasha — it 
is  folly  to  deny  that  he  was — may  be  even  yet,  for  all  one 
knows — overcome  by  his  attentions.  To  the  American  they 
were  inherently  better,  in  some  strange  sense,  more  versed  in 


'50  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  | 

the  ways  of  that  great  world  which  he  longed  to  explore.  Let' 
a  restaurant  advertise  a  French  cuisine  or  cook;  a  tailor  say 
he  is  English;  a  beauty-parlor  or  dressmaker  that  it  or  she  01 
he  is  of  Paris;  a  writer  or  artist  that  he  is  of  French,  Russian, 
Italian,  English  extraction — creak  goes  the  American  knee  and! 
instanter  your  native  American  is  down  on  his  marrowbones, 
his  eyes  rolled  heavenward.  Of  Paris!  Of  London!  Of  Rome! 
Of  St.  Petersburg!  Of  Vienna!  Ah!  How  many  American 
fortunes  have  been  re-banked  in  Europe  to  the  order  of  the: 
thinnest  of  noble  pretensions!  What  millions  have  not  been  ex- 
pended in  an  all  but  useless  effort  to  take  on  the  color  and 
surface  veneer  of  European  manners  and  culture!  To  this 
day  a  foreign  make  of  car,  watch,  cloth,  is  inherently  better 
than  that  of  any  American  manufacture.  Formerly  foreign 
plays  practically  excluded  the  American  product — and  rightly 
enough,  in  my  judgment.  We  have  been  "raised"  on  the 
foreign  book,  the  foreign  picture,  the  foreign  object  of  art. 
The  Swiss,  French  or  Austrian  Alps — how  for  a  hundred  years 
at  least  have  they  not  outrivaled  everything  America  has  to 
offer! 

And  well  enough,  perhaps,  since  as  yet  America  has  no  in- 
tellectual atmosphere,  no  native  art  force  wherewith  to  present 
its  claim,  even  to  itself.  A  drab,  and  in  places  narrowly  igno- 
rant, people,  imagining  that  it  is  religious,  moral,  conservative 
— a  thousand  things  that  really  it  is  not.  Since  it  is  mental 
capacity  that  makes  a  country  interesting  to  itself  and  others, 
perhaps  it  is  the  drab  attitude  of  the  American  toward  what 
he  has  and  is  which  makes  his  land  so  uninteresting  to  himself 
and  others.  Give  him  a  different  mental  attitude,  more  per- 
spective, "punch,"  daring  in  regard  to  life  itself,  and  America 
would  soon  take  on  a  luster  not  outrivaled  by  that  of  any 
other  land. 

Let  us  contemplate  in  this  connection  another  and,  in  so  far 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER   51 

as  this  essay  is  concerned,  final  phase  of  the  American  mind — 
for  I  have  elsewhere  dealt  with  moral  narrowness — and  that  is 
his  serious  and,  were  it  not  so  pathetic  and  at  times  tragic,  one 
might  say,  amusing,  faith  in  the  ballot  and  what  it  will  or 
can  accomplish  for  him.  Always,  always  he  is  voting  for  some 
one — a  mayor  or  a  State  legislator  every  year;  a  congressman 
every  two  years,  a  senator  every  four  or  six;  a  governor  every 
two  and  a  President  every  four  years — and  he  is  under  the 
illusion  that  thereby,  by  his  vote,  his  choice  of  a  candidate,  he 
is  running  the  Government  and  maintaining  his  so-called  liber- 
ties. The  futility  of  his  vote  in  the  late  great  war  might  have 
taught  him  something,  if  only  he  were  to  be  taught.  To  this 
day  he  has  not  discovered  that,  in  the  main,  he  is  merely  voting 
for  individuals  thrust  upon  him  by  interests  and  forces  over 
which  he  has  no  control,  never  has  had,  and  apparently  never 
can  have,  and  the  election  or  defeat  of  whom  does  not  depend 
upon  him  or  the  individuals  about  whom  he  is  so  excited. 
Mayors,  governors,  state  legislators,  congressmen,  senators,  and 
even  judges  and  presidents,  come  and  go,  but  the  powerful 
interests  at  the  top  remain ;  and  however  much  the  former  may 
be  imbued  with  a  desire  to  do  something  for  the  rank  and  file, 
the  latter  are  there  to  revise  or  repress  their  emotions  or  opin- 
ions, and  the  ordinary  voter  finds  himself  about  where  he  was 
before — of  small  force  or  weight  in  the  vast  welter  of  Ameri- 
can politics.  In  short,  keen  money-masters  at  the  top  long 
since  learned  that  a  bare  majority  of  votes  anywhere,  in  or  out 
of  congress  or  a  state  legislature,  is  sufficient  to  confer  rule  and 
that,  apart  from  convincing  the  intellect  by  sound  argument, 
there  were  many,  many  ways  of  bending  the  representatives  of 
the  people  to  their  will.  If  this  is  not  true,  how  is  it  that 
five  per  cent  of  them  have  ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  wealth 
and  the  other  ninety-five  only  five? 

Those  who  have  made  a  study  of  the  history  of  the  American 
judiciary  have  stood  in  amaze  before  the  evidence  that  non- 


52   SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTE1 

elective  branches  of  the  Government  could  so  consistently,  soi 
openly  and  so  contemptuously  undo  the  work  of  the  elective] 
branches  (The  Dred  Scott  decision;  the  first  nullification  of> 
the  income  tax;  to  cite  only  two).  In  what  American  city* 
would  an  outside  corporation  desiring  real  facilities  or  privileges- 
not  deem  itself  lunatic  not  to  see  the  individual  local  boss,  who 
holds  no  office  of  any  kind  but  who  is  nevertheless  the  last; 
authority  and  can  tell  the  local  mayor  and  the  local  council, 
often  the  local  governor,  what  and  how?  And  to  whom  does 
the  local  boss  bow — the  local  governor  or  national  president? 
Not  at  all.  He  makes  them,  or  helps.  He  bows  to  but  one 
force:  money,  the  great  national  monied  interests,  and  none 
other.  It  is  only  when  the  financial  powers  at  the  top  fall  out 
among  themselves  that  the  least  of  benefits  accrue  to  the  people. 
It  is  always  so,  and  has  always  been  so.  Equation — equation. 
The  monied  individual  against  the  mass;  the  mass  against  the 
monied  individual. 

In  what  American  city  or  state,  pray,  would  a  popular  vote 
for  any  franchise  or  improvement,  however  needful,  be  of  any 
avail  unless  the  consent  of  the  financial  oligarchs  at  the  top 
(in  Wall  Street  principally)  were  first  obtained?  So  much  is 
this  a  commonplace  that  even  the  voters  themselves  would 
laugh  at  the  suggestion  of  any  power  lying  in  them  to  obtain 
any  such  thing.  Before  the  Government  temporarily  took  over 
the  railroads  during  the  period  of  the  great  war,  Lucius  Tuttle 
(a  mere  single  illustration,  this),  president  of  the  Boston  & 
Maine  Railroad,  controlled  the  political  life  of  Maine,  New 
Hampshire  and  Vermont  and  lifted  up  or  cast  down,  at  his 
personal  whim,  members  of  legislatures,  governors,  and  United 
States  senators.  This  is  a  matter  of  record,  not  of  rumor. 
The  quondam  Senator  Chandler  of  New  Hampshire,  one  of  the 
foremost  senators  of  the  nation  of  his  day,  was  thrown  out 
of  office  on  orders  from  Mr.  Tuttle  for  the  most  inconsequential 
exhibition  of  independence.  And  Mr.  Tuttle  took  his  orders 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER   53 

from  Charles  S.  Mellen,  president  of  the  New  York,  New 
Haven  &  Hartford  Railroad;  Mr.  Mellen  took  his  orders  from 
J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  the  elder,  financial  master  of  Wall  Street. 
And  Mr.  Morgan  took  his  orders — from  whom?  God? 

Is  it  not  a  commonplace  of  fact,  recorded  in  every  newspaper 
file  in  America  as  well  as  every  history  worthy  the  name,  that 
the  Goulds,  Hills,  Harrimans,  Rockefellers,  Vanderbilts  and 
such  great  banking  houses  as  Kuhn,  Loeb  &  Company,  abso- 
lutely ruled — via  agents,  attorneys,  lobbyists,  paid  legislators, 
governors  and  the  like — the  politics  of  the  states  through  which 
their  roads  passed?  The  little  minnow  voters  running  here 
and  there  in  schools  might  amuse  themselves  as  they  would  by 
voting  for  this,  that  or  the  other  unimportant  thing — a  mayor, 
say,  or  a  governor  or  a  president — but  let  any  vital  question 
appear,  something  affecting  the  purse  or  privileges  of  the 
money-lords,  and  the  votes  of  the  voters  were  cast  out  or  mis- 
counted, their  elected  representatives  suborned  and  made  false 
to  their  oaths  and  pledges,  the  judiciary  ruled  as  the  money 
interests  dictated,  the  newspapers  made  to  cloud  the  issue  with 
specious  or  false  arguments,  and  even  presidents  and  parties 
faced  about,  leaving  the  dreaming,  ambitious,  hopeful  voter  to 
dream  on  or  to  seek  his  so-called  constitutional  rights  in  some 
other  vain  or  ridiculous  way.  Money  has  always  ruled  America, 
and  apparently  always  will.  As  well  ask  five  cents  to  contend 
with  five  billion  dollars  as  to  ask  an  ordinary  voter  or  business 
man  of  minor  import  to  maintain  or  obtain  his  so-called  rights, 
privileges,  hopes,  dreams  via  the  ballot,  or  any  other  way. 
Even  decent  consideration  for  him  or  his  affairs  from  those 
above  him  financially  has  not  in  the  main  been  granted.  He 
has  been  whipped  and  harried  by  the  very  rich  as  they  chose; 
and  still,  because  he  has  the  ballot  and  can  go  to  the  polls  every 
once  in  so  often  and  cast  it — and  at  such  times  as  he  is 
not  whimpering  over  his  defeats — he  imagines  he  rules! 


54  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

The  truth  is  that  America  has  not  as  yet  had  an  intelligence' 
or  a  culture  worthy  the  name.  It  has  no  visible  intellectual! 
purpose,  unless  it  be  that  of  getting  money.  What  little  so- 
called  culture  we  have  had,  if  we  have  had  any,  has  been  bor- 
rowed from  abroad — principally  England,  which  itself  has 
needed  to  be  revivified  along  the  lines  of  true  culture;  for  it,, 
too,  as  to  its  written  and  spoken  professions  at  least,  has  be- 
come puritan,  pharisaic,  religious  and  never  has  been  demo- 
cratic. If  you  want  to  see  America  illustrated  rather  clearly 
as  to  its  cultural,  or  lack  of  cultural,  results  contemplate  the 
American  millionaire.  He  had,  if  he  has  not  now,  the  prevail- 
ing idea  that  money  is  power;  he  worshiped  and  slaved  for  itr 
in  the  hope  that  it  would  make  him  wonderful  in  the  eyes  of' 
all  men. 

But  consider  the  pathetic  result.  He  got  it.  A  great  war 
crisis  arrived.  He  wished  to  be  useful  with  his  great  (and! 
purely  imaginary)  power,  to  do  some  significant  thing  which 
would  help  the  world  or  at  least  his  country  in  its  hour  of 
stress.  Had  he  the  mental  or  spiritual  equipment  to  see  or 
even  feel  what  was  needed?  Or  was  he  but  one  of  that  im- 
mense class  of  American  men  and  women  who  discovered  in 
this  crisis  that  business  somehow  failed  to  fulfill  their  spiritual 
needs  and  reached  out  from  it,  only  to  find  themselves  lost  in 
a  maze  of  wider  relationships  for  which  they  had  no  technique? 
Ford  organized  a  peace  ship!  He,  with  a  little  load  of  editors, 
journalists,  preachers  and  what  not,  going  to  Europe  to  "call 
the  men  out  of  the  trenches  by  Christmas!"  (1915).  And  the 
wise  American  papers,  especially  in  our  Middle  and  Far  West, 
full  of  his  praises,  and  the  probability  of  success!  It  could 
be  done!  And  that,  in  the  face  of  an  amazing  and  subtle  racial 
movement  and  propaganda,  with  war  and  conquest  as  its 
under-stones,  organizing  in  Germany  since  the  year  1813. 
The  rest  contented  themselves  with  making  more  money.  So 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER    55 

much  for  one  American  business  giant's  success,  and  his  intel- 
lectual grasp  on  life! 

Take  yet  another  phase  in  conclusion.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  great  world  war  we  were  constantly  hearing  talk  of  "the 
obligations  laid  upon  us,"  "our  duty  to  civilization,"  the  neces- 
sity for  "making  the  world  safe  for  democracy,"  when,  as  a 
matter  of  fact  and  according  to  our  chief  spokesman's  own  ad- 
mission it  was  not  until  between  the  third  and  fourth  year  of 
the  war  that  we  began  to  realize  the  true  program  or  purpose 
of  the  enemy  and  that  some  such  enthusiasm  as  was  at  first 
called  for  might  be  necessary!  We  talked  of  the  time  having 
come  for  us  "to  play  our  part  among  the  societies  of  the  world'7 
— and  then  sent  a  Root  and  a  Francis  (corporation  lawyers 
and  agents  both,  and  long  since  discredited  by  the  American 
people  themselves)  to  argue  with  the  representatives  of  a 
torn  and  war-worn  people  seeking  a  new  and  better  form  of 
social  and  political  life.  In  the  war  itself  it  was  apparently 
assumed  that  "men,  money  and  ships"  (the  old  American  idea 
of  quantity,  you  see,  not  ideas  or  wits  wherewith  to  match  the 
deepest  schemes  of  our  adversaries  as  well  as  our  friends) 
was  the  point.  But  life  or  international  politics  and  relations 
or  diplomacy  is  something  more  than  that.  It  may,  and  did, 
require  nothing  less  than  a  mobilization  of  new  characteristics 
and  unique  forces  on  the  part  of  the  pacifistic  and  religious- 
minded  American.  It  actually  compelled  him  to  open  his 
brains  to  the  fact  that  life  is  more  dark  and  mysterious  than  he 
had  supposed,  more  forceful  and  terrible  and  cruel  than  his 
petty  little  pacifistic  and  puritanic  dreams  would  previously 
have  permitted  him  to  believe.  A  door  was  unlocked,  a  win- 
dow opened,  and  looking  out  or  in  on  the  deeps  of  Nature  he 
saw — dimly  enough  even  then,  it  must  be  admitted — what  he 
has  not  even  yet  digested;  that  Nature  has  no  strict  and 
God-given  rules,  that  nothing  is  really  fixed;  anything  may 


56  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

arise,  and  that  within  the  bounds  of  an  unknown  arc  of  equa- 
tion anything  may  happen — anything. 

But  it  took  a  world  horror  to  crack  the  armor  of  smug, 
ignorant  self-sufficiency  which  has  covered  the  average  Ameri- 
can from  crown  to  sole. 

And  has  he  learned?  Does  life  really  mean  any  more  to  him 
than  it  did  before?  I  wonder.  As  some  one  else  has  brilliantly 
said: 

"The  fierce,  rudimentary  mass  mind  of  America,  like  that  of 
some  inchoate,  primeval  monster,  relentlessly  concentrated  in 
the  appetite  of  the  moment,  knows  nothing  as  yet  apparently  of 
its  own  vast,  inert,  almost  nerveless  body  encrusted  with  para- 
sites. One  looks  out  to-day  over  the  immense  vista  of  our 
society,  stretching  westward  in  a  succession  of  dreary  steppes, 
and  one  realizes  what  it  means  to  possess  no  cultural  initiative 
or  tradition,  filling  in  the  interstices  of  energy  and  maintaining 
a  steady  current  of  life  over  and  above  the  ebb  and  flow  of 
individual  necessity  or  animal  appetite  or  purpose."  Money, 
money,  money.  To  build,  build,  build,  in  order  to  make  more 
money,  to  make  a  show,  to  be  better  than  thou — financially 
only.  It  is  told  of  the  quondam  Russell  Sage  that  he  kept  near 
him  in  his  office  a  strongbox  containing  $78,000,000  in  what  he 
called  "gilt-edge"  securities,  the  which,  whenever  he  wished  to 
prove  how  wonderful  he  was  and  how  great  his  life  had  been, 
he  brought  forth  and  exclaimed:  "There — there  isn't  a  man  in 
America  who  can  show  that  many  first-class  stocks  and  bonds! 
Not  one!" 

And  there  wasn't,  perhaps. 

But  what  of  it? 

He  died,  and  not  knowing  what  to  do  with  it  (splendid  testi- 
mony to  the  American  financial  intellect),  left  it  all  to  his  wife; 
who,  old  and  ignorant  herself  and  not  knowing  what  to  do 
with  it,  but  fearing  its  senseless  distribution,  left  it,  after 
various  benefactions  to  sectarian  schools  and  much  influence 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER  57 

brought  to  bear,  to  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation.  And  the 
Russell  Sage  Foundation,  not  knowing  exactly  what  to  do  with 
it,  has  been  "investigating,"  and  re-investigating  and  re-re-in- 
vestigating  ever  since,  this,  that  and  the  other,  with  a  view  to 
finding  out  what  it  should  do  with  it,  what  one  thing,  if  any, 
to  help.  And  what  great  thing,  if  any,  has  the  Russell  Sage 
Foundation  done? 

Well,  America,  in  its  own  peculiar  and  interesting  way,  may 
find  itself  intellectually.  As  an  old  char-woman  who  worked 
for  me  remarked,  "I'm  not  so  dumb  than  I  look."  So,  possibly 
and  probably,  America. 

To  be  sure,  a  new  country  must  at  first  borrow  its  culture 
from  somewhere.  One  does  not  come  by  such  a  thing  instanter 
and  out  of  a  silk  hat.  Still  here  is  a  nation  now  three  hundred 
years  old ;  it  has  one  hundred  and  twenty  millions  of  people,  if 
not  more ;  it  has  as  great,  and  in  their  way  forceful,  cities  as  ex- 
ist anywhere  on  the  globe;  its  architecture  is  already  most  im- 
posing and  fast  attaining  a  splendor  hitherto  never  equaled  by 
any  land;  a  far  better  and  more  satisfying  mechanical  equip- 
ment is  here  than  in  any  nation  elsewhere.  We  have,  in  so  far 
as  material  facilities  are  concerned,  more  and  better  opportuni- 
ties for  genuine  culture  than  are  now  available  to  the  mass 
anywhere.  Then,  why  are  we  so  bent,  I  should  like  to  know, 
upon  more  money,  and,  when  not  that,  upon  idealistically  mis- 
interpreting life?  The  few  genuine  thinkers  that  America  has 
thus  far  produced  are  taboo:  Poe,  Whitman,  Twain.  Only 
in  one  field,  finance — not  in  war,  politics,  the  arts  and  sheer 
intellect — do  our  essential  individuals  compare  favorably  with 
those  of  other  lands.  In  the  main  we  are  too  idealistic  or 
illusioned  in  all  but  our  material  affairs.  But  why  all  the 
delusion  in  re  the  ordinary  intellectual  facts  of  life?  No  single 
nation  has  more  of  wealth,  courage,  industry,  or  more  impres- 
sive varieties  of  scenery,  be  it  of  mountains,  lakes,  valleys,  the 
coast.  We  should  be,  and  for  all  I  know  are  (although  the 


58  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

signs  are  not  numerous),  at  the  opening  of  an  era  of  art  and 
letters  such  as  the  world  in  none  of  its  great  periods  has  sur- 
passed. Yet  in  spite  of  all  this,  and  in  so  far  as  the  mass  and 
its  ostensible  leaders  are  concerned,  we  are  intellectually  dull 
and  unperceiving  in  regard  to  all  the  basic  facts  of  life.  All 
men  are  still  honest,  kind  and  true  (or  should  be)  in  America; 
all  women  pure  as  driven  snow  (or  should  be)  in  America. 
The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  our  real  Constitution;  the  Ten 
Commandments  our  only  laws.  We  all  do  justly,  think  kindly, 
and  it  is  only  bad  men  from  the  world  without,  strangers  and 
evil-thinkers,  who  come  from  heaven  knows  where — for  our  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  cosmogony  does  not  admit  them — to 
cause  us  trouble. 

America  in  its  own  good  time  may  come  to  a  great  end. 
And  again  it  may  not.  It  may  be — who  knows? — a  mere 
money  machine,  a  honey-gatherer  like  the  bee,  a  material  welter 
like  Rome,  without  the  slightest  vision  as  to  what  to  do  or  how 
to  act  once  it  has  its  great  store.  Other  and  shrewder  nations, 
far  less  able  financially  or  physically,  may  yet  lead  the  giant 
by  the  hand,  pull  him  around  by  the  nose.  He  may  be  psycho- 
logically the  same  as  the  wealthy  heir  to  whom  life's  pains  and 
doubts  are  and  remain  unknown,  who,  being  pulled  in  upon  ex- 
pensive pleasures  or  the  ventures  of  others  and  given  a  super- 
ficial reason,  is  cheerfully  willing  to  pay  the  bill  and  depart. 

Well,  if  so  be,  so  be.  Who  can  help  it?  Nature,  if  not  man, 
has  a  way  however,  if  not  wisdom.  In  the  course  of  time  She 
disposes  of  nations  and  their  dreams,  as  well  as  man  and  his, 
by  rotting  them  and  their  material  splendors  back  into  primal 
chemical  substances  and  forces  and  forgetting  them.  Rome 
has  gone;  Greece  has  gone;  and  many,  many  another.  But 
speaking  for  a  nation  that  wishes  to  stand  forth  mentally  sig- 
nificant among  the  peoples  of  the  earth,  that  wishes  to  lead  or 
at  least  be  among  those  that  lead,  must  not  thought — intelli- 
gent, artistic,  accurate  vision — be  among  its  primary  charac- 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  CHARACTER   59 

teristics?  And  is  it  not  possible  that  as  with  individuals  so 
with  nations — where  the  power  to  think  is  lacking  failure  fol- 
lows? Sometimes,  and  in  view  of  the  careers  of  various  na- 
tions past  and  still  present,  one  is  hounded  by  the  thought  that 
as  with  individuals  so  with  nations;  some  are  born  fools,  live 
fools,  and  die  fools.  And  may  not  America  perchance  be  one 
such? 

One  hopes  not. 
But— 


THE  DREAM 

SCENE:  The  vicinity  of  iijth  Street  and  Broadway,  New  York 
City,  on  a  warm,  lowery  May  night.  Time,  11.15. 

Approach  along  Broadway  from  n6th  Street  George  Paul  Syphers, 
Professor  of  Chemistry;  Forbes  Mitchell,  Professor  of  Phi- 
losophy; Abner  Barrett,  Professor  af  Physics.  Syphers  is 
medium  in  height,  slim,  fiery,  black-whiskered,  barbered  to  per- 
fection.  He  is  loquacious  and  demonstrative.  Mitchell  is  at- 
tenuated, humped,  gray.  He  is  quite  old.  Barrett  is  "fifty, 
blonde,  bald,  heavy,  silent. 

SYPHERS 

(As  they  reach  the  corner.)  Well,  I  turn  off  here.  That  was 
an  interesting  discussion  we  had,  eh?  The  fact  is,  Mitchell, 
as  I  told  you  the  other  day,  I  have  passed  out  of  my  old  mate- 
rialistic point  of  view  to  a  certain  extent — not  entirely — but 
now  I  see  more  order  in  things  than  I  once  did — a  necessary 
if  mechanistic  order.  It  seems  more  or  less  inescapable  to  me, 
doesn't  it  to  you? 

MITCHELL 

(Doubtfully)       Well,     yes,     I     might     say — only— of 
course 

BARRETT 

(Dogmatically.)  I  do  not  see  how  any  one  can  doubt  law. 
Everything  obeys  law  of  one  kind  and  another. 

SYPHERS 

Quite  so!  Quite  so!  Law,  of  course.  Everything  obeys  a 
law  or  laws  of  one  kind  and  another.  Nevertheless,  there  are 
so  many  confusing  contradictions.  Laws  seem  to  conflict  at 

60 


THE  DREAM  6r 

times,  don't  you  think,  even  in  chemical  and  sidereal  space. 
You  don't  deny  that,  do  you? 

BARRETT 

Still,  more  knowledge  might  prove  them  to  be  anything  but 
contradictory. 

SYPHERS 

Well,  I  admit  that,  too.  Only  I  was  merely  suggesting  that  I 
see  more  definite  order  than  I  once  did.  A  few  years  ago  I 
could  see  nothing  but  disorder,  chaos,  the  inexplicable  clashing 
of  forces.  Of  late  I  am  not  so  sure.  This  matter  of  ortho- 
genesis now;  it  appeals  to  me  very  much  as  demonstrating  an 
intellectual  if  not  a  spiritual  order,  some  great  controlling 
force  somewhere.  I  seem  to  see  a  definite  tendency  to  order 
in  things.  Life  has  certainly  built  itself  up  through  the  ages 
in  a  very  intelligent  way  indeed,  don't  you  think? 

BARRETT 

(Loftily.)  Ye-es,  of  course,  only  there  have  been  many  er- 
rors and  conflicts  there  too — sudden  stoppage  of  plans  in  vari- 
ous directions. 

MITCHELL 
True,  as  I  was  about  to  point  out. 

SYPHERS 

(Almost  unconscious  of  interruption.)  I  admit  that.  I 
admit  that.  What  I  am  getting  at  is  this:  all  life,  as  we  know 
it,  is  based  on  the  cell — cell  origination,  cell  multiplication,  cell 
arrangement.  That  is  an  old  story.  Now  here  is  something 
which  is  my  own  idea — it's  a  mere  theory,  of  course — that  the 
whole  thing  may  have  been  originated,  somehow,  somewhere 
else,  worked  out  beforehand,  as  it  were,  in  the  brain  of  some- 
thing or  somebody  and  is  now  being  orthogenetically  or  chemi- 
cally directed  from  somewhere,  being  thrown  on  a  screen,  as  it 
were,  like  a  moving-picture,  and  we  mere  dot  pictures,  mere  cell- 
built-up  pictures,  like  the  movies,  only  we  are  telegraphed  or 
telautographed  from  somewhere  else,  like  those  dot  pictures 


62  THE  DREAM 

that  are  now  made  electrically,  built  up  dot  by  dot,  millions  o 
them  coming  rapidly  by  wireless  or  wire  and  being  thrown  on  ; 
screen  of  some  kind — ether,  the  elements — you  know  what  ! 
mean.  You  have  seen  the  telautograph  pictures  I  mean,  o 
course? 

BARRETT 

Yes,  of  course.  Very  ingenious.  Very  ingenious.  But  hov 
do  you  prove  the  origination  of  the  cell  in  the  fashion  that  yoi 
want? 

MITCHELL 

(Aside.)  A  rather  slow  movie,  I  should  say,  considering  th< 
length  of  time  it  has  taken  to  build  it  up. 

SYPHERS 

Well,  in  this  way — it  has  its  drawbacks,  of  course;  you  re- 
member the  experiments  of  that  Irish  scientist  Burke,  don'1 
you?  He  generated  what  he  called  a  radiobe — a  single  cell  ir 
a  plasm  culture  which  he  had  hermetically  sealed  and  which 
he  kept  under  the  influence  of  radium.  I  do  not  recall  the 
exact  facts  of  the  case  at  the  moment,  and  I  do  not  believe 
that  his  deductions  have  since  been  accepted,  but  that  is 
neither  here  nor  there.  That  idea  of  his  illustrates  mine  very 
well.  If  we  could  prove  that  one  cell,  one  radiobe,  had  been 
or  could  be  originated  or  generated  by  an  outside  influence 
of  this  kind — radium,  if  you  wish,  in  a  plasm  of  that  kind— 
we  would  have  to  admit  that  the  whole  thing  might  be  built 
up  in  some  such  fashion.  Why,  you  could  base  a  new  phi- 
losophy on  that,  Mitchell.  One  radiobe  generated  in  a  plasm 
culture  under  radium  or  something  else,  some  autogenetic 
force  manifesting  itself  through  a  thing  like  radium,  and  there 
you  are.  After  that  you  would  have  to  grant  the  possibility  of 
millions  and  billions  of  cells  coming  in  that  fashion,  whole 
nations  constructed  of  cells,  as  they  have  been. 
MITCHELL 

My  dear  Syphers! 


THE  DREAM  63 

BARRETT 

There  was  some  hitch  in  that  experiment,  however.  The 
chain  wasn't  quite  complete. 

SYPHERS 

I  know — I  know.  I  grant  you  that.  All  I'm  insisting  on  is 
that  if  one  cell,  one  radiobe,  say,  can  be  generated  by  a  syn- 
thesis of  energy,  why  not  millions?  And  if  millions,  why  not 
billions,  the  whole  human  family,  in  short,  since  we  are  a  syn- 
thesis of  cells — this  whole  visible  scene  in  all  its  details?  I 
know  it  sounds  wild,  but  (to  Mitchell)  I  have  heard  you  your- 
self say  that  you  thought  it  might  be  possible  that  we  were  all 
a  part  of  some  invisible  psychic  body,  force  body,  in  the 
mechanism  of  which  we  function  in  some  way,  just  as  the  cells 
do  in  ours. 

MITCHELL 

(Much  flattered.)    Yes,  I  have  said  as  much. 
SYPHERS 

Well,  then,  why  may  not  my  theory  be  true? 
BARRETT 

May?  May?  Of  course  it  may.  But  how  are  you  going 
to  prove  it?  I  myself  have  suggested  that  Mitchell's  larger 
psychic  body,  as  he  calls  it,  may  be  nothing  more  than  a  fetus, 
a  secondary  creature  being  built  in  the  womb  of  a  still  larger 
organism,  but  what  of  it?  All  of  us,  everything  that  we  see 
here,  may  be  nothing  more  than  parts  of  organs  that  are  being 
constructed  in  some  huge  womb.  This  so-called  higher  psychic 
body  may  not  even  be  complete  yet,  not  ready  to  be  born  in  its 
realm.  But  how  do  we  know?  There's  nothing  to  prove  it. 

SYPHERS 

Just  the  same,  if  I  had  a  few  hundred  thousand  dollars  I 
would  enlarge  my  laboratory  and  pursue  this  subject.  I  believe 
that  something  may  be  discovered.  I  believe  that  I  could  prove 
it  in  the  course  of  time.  Why,  snow  crystals,  tree  and  flower 
forms,  everything,  gives  us  a  hint,  sometimes  instantaneously. 


64  THE  DREAM 

Why  do  snow  crystals  assume  almost  instantaneously  and  out 
of  nothing  their  beautiful  forms?  The  controlling  impulse  is 
certainly  artistic,  isn't  it,  and  outside  of  anything  we  know? 
(He  notes  that  he  is  pressing  the  matter  too  jar  and  boring  his 
two  friends.)  Well,  good  night.  Glad  to  see  you  two  at  the 
meeting  to-night.  It  was  interesting,  wasn't  it? 

BARRETT 
Very.    (To  himself.)    He's  a  terrible  bore. 

MITCHELL 

Delightful.  (To  himself.)  I'm  glad  he's  done.  (They  bow 
and  depart.) 

SYPHERS 
Dolts!  Fogies!    That's  always  the  way,  dull  and  cautious. 

BARRETT 

(As  they  walk  up  the  street.)  An  ingenious  theory,  but 
dangerously  speculative.  He  ought  to  read  Stromeyer  on  "Im- 
pulse." 

MITCHELL 

I  often  wonder  about  his  work  and  just  how  sound  he  is. 

SYPHERS  reaches  his  own  door  and  goes  up  the  steps,  un- 
locks it  and  mounts  the  inside  stairs  to  his  room.  He  lights  the 
gas  in  a  chamber  which  is  half  library  and  half  bedroom.) 

SYPHERS 

(Seating  himself  and  gazing  about  dreamily.)  A  great  idea. 
I'm  sure  of  it.  Along  this  line  is  coming  a  scientific  revolution. 
If  I  had  enough  radium  and  stromium,  why — but  they  cost 
so  much.  (He  yawns.)  Life  is  reafly  a  dream.  We  are  all  an 
emanation,  a  shadow,  a  moving  picture  cast  on  a  screen  of 
ether.  I'm  sure  of  it.  (He  gazes  about,  yawns  again,  and 
begins  to  undress.) 

A  TELEGRAPH  INSTRUMENT 

(At  noth  Street  Station.)    Tick— tick-tick tick-tick-tick 

— tick-tick tick — tick-tick-tick-tick-tick 


THE  DREAM  65 

TELEGRAPH  OPERATOR 

There  goes  that  blamed  machine  again  (begins  to  write) 
"Professor  George  Paul  Syphers,  621  West  usth  Street,  New 
York  City.  Your  uncle,  Edward  Fillmore,  died  at  eleven  to- 
night. By  the  terms  of  his  will  you  are  the  sole  heir  to  the 
bulk  of  his  fortune,  three  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Come  at 
once.  A.  J.  Larywind,  Counsellor,"  (Aside.)  I  wish  someone 
would  leave  me  three  thousand  cents.  (To  a  waiting  mes- 
senger.) Here,  Patsy.  Take  this  up  to  ii5th  Street. 

PATSY  LAFERTY 

(Cock-eyed,  overgrown,  contentious.)  Sure,  it's  just  de 
night  to  keep  busy.  It's  goin'  to  rain,  an'  it's  me  late  watch. 
Oh,  well,  dere's  nuttin'  like  bein'  poor  an'  honest.  (He  seizes 
a  black  cotton  umbrella  almost  as  large  as  himself  and  goes 
out.) 

SYPHERS 

(Crawling  into  his  bed.)  The  curious  thing  is:  why  should 
any  dominant  force  outside  this  seeming  life  wish  to  create  it — 
the  smallness,  the  pettiness,  the  suffering?  I  must  write  a 
book  about  that.  Here  I  am — (he  suddenly  bethinks  him  of 
opening  a  window  and  gets  out.  Looking  out).  It's  going  to 
rain,  I  do  believe.  (He  returns  and  stretches  himself  to  rest.) 
There,  it's  thundering  already. 

PATSY  LAFERTY 

(Trudging  solemnly  up  Broadway.)  It's  funny,  dese  mokes 
wot  git  messages  at  one  in  de  mornin'.  I'll  lay  a  even  bet  I 
don't  git  nuttin',  neider.  If  you'd  come  wit  a  million  dollars 
after  twelve  o'clock  dere's  guys  wot'd  git  sore. 

SYPHERS 

(Dozing,  but  still  continuing  his  speculations  hazily.)  I 
must  try  to  find  the  psychic  impulse  which  originates  and 
directs  the  cell.  That  is  the  great  thing.  We're  all  shadows, 
I  say,  shadows — adumbrations — impalpable  nothings — rumors 


66  THE  DREAM 

— dreams.  (He  turns  on  his  side.)  If  our  ills  become  too  great 
we  might  be  able  to  wake  up  or  drive  them  away  by  thinking 
of  this.  It  may  be  that  that's  what  we  do  when  we  die — wake 
up.  But  that's  Christian  Science,  isn't  it?  Bah!  (He  snores 
slightly.) 

PATSY  LAFERTY 

(Arriving  at  the  door  and  closing  his  umbrella.)  A  fine 
night,  dis.  An'  he  won't  be  in.  Dat's  my  luck.  (He  rings  the 
bell.) 

SYPHERS 

(Beginning  to  dream.)  Radiobes!  Radiobes!  Flying  radiv 
obes  as  big  as  houses — monsters — (He  stirs.  As  he  does  so  the 
ringing  of  the  bell,  the  rising  wind  and  the  thunder  and  light- 
ning, which  rapidly  become  violent,  identify  themselves  in  some 
weird  way  with  his  thoughts.  He  is  on  a  large  plain  now  over 
which  a  battle  is  being  fought.  The  flashes  of  lightning  and 
bellows  of  thunder  gradually  identify  themselves  in  his  mind 
with  some  impending  disaster,  vague  and  yet  oppressive.  He 
begins  to  cerebrate  in  an  imaginative,  illogical  way.  A  sense  of 
something  ominous  pervades  him,  a  feeling  of  great  change. 
Then  the  rat-a-tat-tat  of  machine  guns  begins  and  armed  figures 
running  and  fighting  appear  in  the  distance.) 

SYPHERS 

(Who  once  saw  military  service.)  War!  And  fighting  men! 
(It  begins  to  rain.)  That  is  a  machine  gun.  Now  I  am  in 
real  danger.  How  did  I  come  here,  anyhow?  (He  moves  a 
hand,  thinking  he  is  hurrying  to  cover.) 

PA^TSY  LAFERTY 

(Standing  at  the  door,  ringing  the  bell  and  shifting  from  one 
foot  to  the  other.)  Wot  a  swell  night!  Wot  a  swell  night! 
Now  it's  startin'  to  pour  an'  I'll  have  to  stand  here  aw'ile,  I 
guess.  Holy  Gripes,  dem  drops  is  as  big  as  marbles!  (He 
pushes  the  bell  again.) 


THE  DREAM  67 

THE  PROFESSOR 

(Hearing  the  whirr  of  the  buzzer  in  his  dreams  and  taking  it 
for  the  rush  of  artillery  and  men.)  Ah,  the  horror  of  war  I 
What  was  I  thinking? — ah,  yes!  If  one  had  some  method  of 
waking  up.  (He  mingles  the  dream  notions  of  his  waking 
philosophy  with  the  figures  of  his  dream.)  Then  there  would 
be  no  more  war,  no  horrors.  It  is  entirely  possible,  now  that 
we  know  this  existence  of  ours  is  a  dream.  I  may  be  dreaming 
now — who  knows?  If  so,  I  could  wake  up  and  all  my  ills  would 
vanish+-or  would  they?  (As  the  thunder  and  lightning  in- 
crease.) How  horrible  this  is!  ( The  dream  sky  lights  up  as  if 
with  red  fire.) 

PATSY  LAFERTY 

T-r-r-r!  T-r-r-r-r!  T-r-r-r-r-r!  Wot's  de  matter  wit  dis 
bell?  W'y  don't  de  guy  answer? 

THE  PROFESSOR 

(Dreaming  and  looking  about  him  in  apprehension.)  War! 
War!  How  terrible!  How  did  I  come  here?  How  does  there 
happen  to  be  war?  Those  are  fighting  men  over  there!  They 
are  killing  each  other!  Horrors!  But  the  great  thing  is  to 
escape.  That  fire  is  dreadful.  It  means  death.  (He  struggles 
to  put  himself  in  motion  and  grunts  in  his  sleep.) 
PATSY  LAFERTY 

(Ringing  again.)  Well,  dis  is  some  sleeper,  all  right.  Or 
else  dere  ain't  nobody  home.  I'll  kick,  I  will.  (He  kicks.) 
Come  to!  I  ain't  supposed  to  stand  here  all  night.  (Kicks  and 
knocks  are  without  result.) 

SYPHERS 

(Still  dreaming  heavily.)  And  here  comes  a  file  of  soldiers — 
I  hear  them  tramping — a  great  company.  Merciful  heavens, 
they  see  me!  (He  begins  to  run.  As  he  does  so  the  file  of 
dream  soldiers  begin  to  run  also.) 

THE  FILE  OF  DREAM  SOLDIERS 

Halt! 


68  THE  DREAM 

THE  PROFESSOR 

(Breaking  into  a  heavy  sweat.)  Great  God!  I  haven't  a 
place  to  hide!  Oh,  Lord,  what  shall  I  do?  (He  turns,  and  in 
his  dream  he  imagines  a  deserted  stone  hut  set  in  a  grove  of 
thick  tall  trees,  which  seems  to  offer  shelter.  lie  runs  towards 
the  hut.)  As  I  live,  here  is  a  stone  hut  among  thick  trees!  I'll 
hide  in  it.  Perhaps  they  won't  see  me.  (He  dashes  wildly  in, 
slamming  a  heavy  door  behind  him.) 

A  SCORE  OF  DREAM  SOLDIERS 

(Hurrying  after  him  and  knocking  with  their  musket  butts 
on  the  door.)  Knock!  Knock!  Knock! 

PATSY  LAFERTY 

(At  the  door.)  Knock!  Knock!  Knock!  Gee,  wot  a 
night!  Dese  raindrops  look  like  spits.  An'  dat  lightning! 
Dat  last  one  looked  like  a  telegraph  pole  standin'  straight  in  de 
air! 

SYPHERS 

(Cowering  in  a  corner.)  Oh,  Lord!  My  life  is  worth 
nothing!  Here  I  lie  hiding  in  an  empty  stone  hut,  and  those 
men  at  the  door  want  my  life.  What  is  life?  A  dream!  A 
dream! — but,  oh,  such  a  precious  dream!  I  would  not  want 
to  disappear — not  yet!  No,  no!  I  would  not  want  to  wake  up. 
I  don't  want  to  die — not  yet.  Not  yet!  (/Is  he  lies  there  cower- 
ing, all  the  coruscations  and  thunder  of  a  great  battle  afflict 
him;  cannon,  machine  guns,  human  cries,  commands.  He  cowers 
lower,  and  yet  in  spite  of  the  thickness  of  the  walls  which  seem 
to  protect  him  he  can  see  through  them  to  the  surrounding 
trees  to  where  the  dream  soldiers  await  him — tall  men  in  red 
coacs  and  towering  shakos — and  beyond  them  again  to  the  bat- 
tlefield, red  with  flame  and  gore.  As  he  stares,  the  men  in  the 
shakos  glare  at  him.) 

FIRST  DREAM  SOLDIER 
(Pointing  at  him  and  speaking  to  another.)     We'll  easily 


THE  DREAM  69 

get  him  out  of  there.  Can't  you  see  him  lying  there,  close  by 
the  wall?  (To  the  other  soldiers.)  Bring  a  battering  ram. 
(A  soldier  starts  off.)  No,  bring  a  cannon.  We'll  blow  him 
out.  (A  second  soldier  goes.)  He  thinks  we  can't  get  him, 
but  we  can.  (Other  soldiers  draw  near.  They  move  in  the 
curious,  indefinite  way  common  to  figures  in  dreams.  Nothing 
is  clear,  and  yet  there  is  a  sense  of  impending  disaster.  The 
Professor  studies  the  nature  of  his  predicament  with  a  sense 
of  horror.) 

THE  PROFESSOR 

(Lying  on  the  floor,  close  to  the  wall.)  Ah,  if  I  could  only 
escape!  I  was  thinking  a  while  ago  that  life  was  a  shadow  of 
something  else,  an  adumbration,  a  thing  built  up  point  by  point 
like  the  dots  of  a  telautographed  picture.  Now  if  that  were  so 
I  could  get  out  of  here.  It  would  be  a  dream.  I  could  wake. 
I  could  cry  "Avaunt!"  I  could  stir  and  it  would  all  disappear 
and  become  as  nothing.  But  here!  Here — (he  pauses  and 
stares.  A  company  of  dream  soldiers  on  horseback  gallop  up 
and  swing  a  cannon  into  position.) 

THE   CAPTAIN   OF  THE   DREAM    SOLDIERS 
(Dramatically.)     Position!     (They  unhook  the  horses  And 
man  the  guns.)     Load!      (A  shell  is  put  in.)     Fire!      (It 
belches  flame  and  smoke.    A  great  hole  is  torn  in  the  wall  of 
the  hut.) 

PATSY  LAFERTY 

(At  the  door.)  Gee,  dat  las'  crack  was  a  bold!  If  he  kin 
sleep  troo  dat  he  soitenly  won't  hear  me — or  maybe  he  ain't 
home.  Well,  I  might  as  well  stand  here.  I  can't  go  back  in 
dis.  (He  decides  to  make  himself  comfortable  in  the  door- 
way.) 

THE  PROFESSOR 

(Imagining  he  is  crying.)  Help!  Help!  Oh,  save  me! 
Save  me!  (He  realizes  that  he  emits  no  sound,  and  groans.) 


70  THE  DREAM 

FIRST  DREAM  OFFICER 

Once,  more,  men!  Another  shell  here!  (Another  is  put  in.) 
Fire! 

THE  CANNON 
Poof!    Boom!     (Another  great  hole  is  torn  in  the  watt.) 

PATSY  LAFERTY 

(As  a  second  electric  crash  occurs.)  I  don't  know  wedder 
I'd  better  stay  here.  I  don't  wanna  get  killed.  (He  walks 
about  uneasily.) 

THE  PROFESSOR 

(Heavily  and  desperately.)  I  am  lost!  I  know  it.  Oh,  if 
my  idea  were  only  true!  What  if  all  this  turmoil  and  agony 
were  a  figment  of  the  mind  merely,  a  cell  or  dot  picture?  Here 
I  am  in  this  hut;  these  soldiers  are  about  to  destroy  me.  If 
I  could  just  cry  "Avaunt! "  "Disappear! " — or  if  I  could  know 
that  I  am  not  real,  and  disappear  myself.  I  wonder  if  I  might 
not  try  it?  (He  jumps  to  his  feet.) 

A  FLASH  OF  LIGHTNING 
Click— Sssssss! 

A  CLAP  OF  REAL  THUNDER 

Boom ! 

THE  PROFESSOR 

(To  the  dream  soldiers,  defiantly.)  I  defy  you!  Do  your 
worst!  You're  not  real!  I'm  not  real!  This  whole  thing  is 
a  dream!  I'm  a  dream,  or  I'm  dreaming!  I  defy  you! 

FIRST  DREAM  SOLDIER 

(Drawing  near  with  a  rifle.)  Is  that  so?  You  defy  me,  do 
you?  I'll  show  you  whether  I'm  real  or  not.  (He  takes  de- 
liberate aim.) 

SECOND  DREAM  SOLDIER 
Yes,  kill  him.    That's  the  way! 

THE  PROFESSOR 

(Lifting  his  hand.)  Wait  a  moment!  Don't!  I — I'm  not 
sure! 


THE  DREAM  71 

FIRST  DREAM  SOLDIER 

But  I  will,  just  the  same.    You  say  I'm  not  real?    I'll  show 
you  whether  I  am  or  not!     (He  fires.)    How  does  that  feel? 
THE  PROFESSOR 

(Who  has  twisted  himself  about  until  he  has  one  hand  under 
him  in  a  most  painful  position.)  Oh,  God,  I'm  shot!  And 
now  I'll  die!  This  whole  scene,  real  or  not  real,  will  pass  away 
and  I  will  never  know — or  will  I?  And  yet  once  I  was  a  man, 
and  it  was  good  to  be  alive.  Oh!  Oh!  Oh!  (He  weeps  and 
sinks  down.  A  power  fill  clap  of  thunder  half  arouses  him. 
The  knocking  of  Patsy  Laferty  becomes  dimly  audible,  a  cross 
between  the  clatter  of  musketry  and  a  knock.  He  stares  at 
the  soldiers,  some  of  whom  seem  already  to  be  growing  thin  and 
wavering.)  Dying!  Alas!  I'm  dying!  Never  will  I  see  this 
wonderful  world  any  more!  (He  partially  wakes.)  Or  will  I? 
What's  this— I'm  not  dying,  after  all!  They're  not  real!  I'm 
only  dreaming.  How  astonishing!  (To  the  dream  soldiers,  de- 
fiantly.) You're  not  real,  after  all.  You're  mere  shadows, 
thin  air.  I'm  dying,  but  you're  not  real.  This  house  isn't  real. 
It  couldn't  have  holes  in  it  if  it  were,  or  at  least  I  couldn't  have 
seen  through  it  in  the  first  place  if  it  hadn't.  You're  shadows, 
tissues  of  nothing,  a  mere  fancy  of  the  brain.  Oh,  wonderful! 
FIRST  DREAM  OFFICER 

(Standing  by  the  cannon.)  Are  we?  Well,  you're  a  fool! 
Wait!  You  may  be  waking  into  another  state,  but  you'll  be 
dead  to  this  one.  But  we  won't.  Ha!  Ha!  We'll  still  be 
here,  alive.  (To  the  second  dream  soldier.)  He  thinks  he's 
not  real.  He  thinks  we're  not  real.  v  He  thinks  he's  not  going 
to  die,  but  wake  up  into  something  else!  Ha!  Ha!  (They 
look  at  each  other  in  a  strange,  fading,  unreal  way.)  When  he 
passes  out  of  this  won't  he  be  dead  to  this,  though? 
THE  PROFESSOR 

(Amazedly.)    What  is  this?      Am  I  dying,  or  waking  up? 
Which  is  it?    Are  there  various  worlds,  one  within  another? 


72  THE  DREAM 

Are  those  soldiers  really  real?  Great  heavens!  How  strange  1 
I  am  waking  up,  and  yet  this  world  in  which  I  am  is  real 
enough.  I  died  there.  I  certainly  did,  or  I  am  dying  there. 
( The  house  begins  to  dissolve  like  smoke;  the  trees  can  be  seen 
through  the  bodies  of  the  soldiers.) 

PATSY  LAFERTY 

(At  the  door.)  I'll  give  dis  guy  one  more  spin  an'  den  I'll 
quit.  I  ain't  gonna  stand  here  all  night,  rain  or  no  rain. 
Clump!  Clump!  Clump!  (He  kicks  with  his  heel  at  the 
same  time  that  he  rings.) 

THE  PROFESSOR 

(Bounding  out  of  bed.)  Oh,  blessed  heaven!  What  is  that? 
I'm  not  dead,  after  all!  I  am  really  alive!  It  was  a  dream,  all 
of  it.  How  glad  I  am  to  be  awake!  (He  reaches  for  his 
trousers.)  But  those  soldiers!  They  argued  with  me  about  it! 
They  did!  They  made  fun  of  me!  Isn't  that  amazing!  This 
dream  is  a  call  to  me  to  seek  out  this  mystery.  If  ever  I  get 
money  enough  to  do  it  that  is  certainly  what  I  will  do.  I  shall 
devote  all  my  life  to  solving  this  mystery.  If  only  I  could  find 
somebody  who  would  endow  a  laboratory  for  this  purpose. 
(He  pauses  and  stares,  as  the  bell  whirrs.)  Yes,  yes!  I'm 
coming!  (He  bustles  downstairs,  turning  up  the  light  as  he 
goes.) 

PATSY  LAFERTY 

(Irritably ',  as  the  door  is  opened.)    Syphers? 

THE  PROFESSOR 
Yes. 

PATSY  LAFERTY 

Tellygram.  Sign  here.  (He  produces  about  a  half  inch  of 
pencil  and  holds  up  a  signature  blank.  The  Professor  signs. 
Absentmindedly  he  tears  open  the  message,  but  while  doing  so 
turns  and  closes  the  door.  Patsy  Lafferty  stares  at  it  discon- 
solately.) 


THE  DREAM  73 

THE  PROFESSOR 

(Reading.)  A  miracle!  $300,000!  Just  what  I  need  for 
that  laboratory!  It's  a  sign!  The  dream  is  a  portent,  a  call! 
My  poor  dear,  good  uncle!  What  moved  him  to  leave  me 
that?  Now  I  know  the  dream  was  an  omen.  And  yet — 
(thinking  of  a  certain  maiden  he  has  been  courting) — should 
I  really  do  that?  Three  hundred  thousand  are  three  hundred 
thousand,  and  where  would  I  ever  get  that  much  again?  (He 
hesitates  mentally.)  We  could  live  beautifully  on  that.  I'm 
not  so  sure.  Perhaps  I  could  get  some  one  else  to  furnish  that 
money.  (He  starts  upstairs.)  But  that  poor  boy!  I  forgot  to 
give  him  a  penny,  and  it's  storming.  (Returns  and  reopens  the 
door,  looks  up  and  down  the  street,  and  comes  back.)  Dear, 
dear,  dear!  I  should  have  given  him  a  dime,  anyhow — bring- 
ing such  a  fortunate  message.  But  I  must  think  about  this 
laboratory,  though,  and  this  money.  I  must  not  act  too  hastily 
or  inadvisedly.  Three  hundred  thousand  are  three  hundred 

thousand,  and (He  goes  upstairs  again  solemnly.) 

PATSY  LAFERTY 

(One  block  south,  staring  at  the  sidewalk.)  Wot  did  I  say? 
Wot  did  I  say?  Dey  never  comes  across  wit  nuttin'  after 
twelve — nuttin'.  Not  if  you  handed  dem  a  million. 


THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER 

THE  long  line  of  American  financiers,  beginning  with  Ste- 
phen Girard  (1750-1831),  and  extending  via  Astor,  the 
Vanderbilts,  Goulds,  J.  P.  Morgan  and  F.  W.  Woolworth  to 
Henry  Ford  of  the  present  time,  suggests  nothing  so  much  as  a 
procession  of  thrifty  and,  in  the  main,  cat-like  animals  weaving 
a  devious  way  amid  intricacies  of  law  and  public  opinion  and 
theories  as  to  morals,  duty,  charity  and  the  like,  until  finally  one 
is  led  to  conclude  that,  by  and  large,  the  financial  type  is  the 
coldest,  the  most  selfish,  and  the  most  useful  of  all  living  phe- 
nomena. Plainly  it  is  a  highly  specialized  machine  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  some  end  which  Nature  has  in  view.  Often 
humorless,  shark-like,  avid,  yet  among  the  greatest  constructive 
forces  imaginable;  absolutely  opposed  to  democracy  in  prac- 
tice, yet  as  useful  an  implement  for  its  accomplishment  as  for 
autocracy;  either  ignorant  or  contemptuous  of  ethical  niceties 
as  related  to  thine  and  mine,  yet  a  stickler  for  all  that  concerns 
mine;  moral  and  immoral  sexually — both  types  abound;  narrow 
to  all  but  an  infinitesimal  line  in  nearly  all  that  relates  to  the 
humanities  as  applied  to  individuals;  wise  and  generous  in  the 
matter  of  large,  even  universal  benefactions,  yet  guilty  of  the 
meanest  subterfuge  where  their  own  interests  are  concerned; 
and  seeking  always  to  perpetuate  their  own  fame.  In  other 
words,  typical  men  and  women  of  an  avid  pagan  world  (vide 
Hetty  Green,  Russell  Sage),  yet  surrounded  by  religious  and 
ethical  abstrusities  for  which  they  care  little  and  of  which  they 
understand  less. 

Such  might  be  called  the  pathology  of  the  genus  financier, 
not  only  in  America,  but  everywhere. 

74 


THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER  75 

In  regard  to  our  American  specimens  it  is  more  or  less  ana- 
chronistic to  speak  of  them  as  purely  American  in  character, 
although,  in  a  way,  they  are.  The  organizing  and  financial 
type  of  mind — American,  European  or  any  other — is  really 
little  different  from  that  of  all  preceding  countries  and  ages. 
Yet  financial  manipulation,  in  the  extended  modern  sense,  is 
comparatively  new.  It  dates  from  the  industrial  revolution 
in  England  in  the  eighteenth  century.  There  was  a  time  when 
the  organizing  type  of  mind,  comparable  to  our  modern  exam- 
ples, was  engaged  in  other  things:  money-lending  and  exchange 
principally.  The  machinery  for  finance  in  the  modern  sense  was 
lacking.  You  might  have  found  a  J.  P.  Morgan,  a  J.  D.  Rocke- 
feller, or  a  Russell  Sage  as  Keeper  of  the  Exchequer  and  Super- 
visor of  the  Grain  Stores  of,  say,  Egypt  or  Assyria,  or  Adviser 
to  the  King,  whether  he  ruled  in  Babylon,  Persia  or  elsewhere. 
One  cannot  help  thinking  what  an  excellent  type  of  Keeper 
of  the  Exchequer,  Vizier  or  High  Priest  our  own  John  D. 
Rockefeller  would  have  made.  The  robes!  The  sanctity  1 

As  we  come  forward  in  history  to  the  end  of  the  Roman 
Empire  and  the  beginning  of  that  mental  darkness  known  as 
the  Middle  Ages,  when  all  intelligence,  financial  and  other, 
seems  to  have  been  completely  swept  away,  we  find  the  purely 
financial  and  organizing  type  but  slowly  developing.  Joseph 
(he  of  the  coat  of  many  colors),  fabled  Croesus,  who  ruled  in 
Asia  Minor,  and  Lepidus  and  Maecenas,  friends  of  triumvirs, 
emperors  and  poets,  are  excellent  examples  of  the  ancient  finan- 
cial type.  Their  like  is  not  to  be  found  until  after  the  revival 
of  banking  and  trade  in  the  fifteenth  century.  And  if  you  look 
back  you  will  see  that  to-day,  in  another  way,  we  have  been 
repeating  in  Wall  Street  (or  were  until  a  few  years  ago),  the 
type  of  man  who  occasionally  sat  as  Emperor  over  all  the 
Romans.  If  you  are  inclined  to  doubt  this  you  might,  if  the 
opportunity  offered,  examine  the  collection  of  portrait  busts  of 
Roman  Emperors  of  the  highly  executive  and  financial  type 


76  THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER 

(Hadrian,  Trajanus,  Titus,  Caracalla  and  the  rest)  in  the 
Vatican,  the  Musee  del  la  Terme  and  the  British  Museum. 
Hadrian,  for  instance,  was  as  much  like  the  late  Commodore 
Vanderbilt,  side  whiskers  and  all,  as  one  man  might  be  to 
another;  and  Trajanus  greatly  resembled  the  late  Mark  Hanna, 
whose  name  somehow  suggests  that  of  a  Roman.  Any  one  of 
ten  or  fifteen  portrait  busts  of  ancient  Roman  Emperors  might 
almost  be  mistaken  for  Armour,  Morgan,  Gould,  Sage,  Crocker, 
Stanford,  Hearst.  For  example,  compare  Russell  Sage  to  Julius 
Caesar;  or  Wm.  H.  Vanderbilt  to  Augustus  Caesar.  Indeed,  if 
you  were  to  examine  some  of  the  major  operations  of  the  suc- 
cessful Roman  Emperors  you  would  find  that  their  power  to 
maintain  their  positions  with  the  Praetorian  Guard  and  the 
Patrician  Class  (which  was  really  the  Roman  world,  so  far  as 
they  were  concerned)  was  largely  financial  and  organizing  in 
the  same  peculiar  spirit  in  which  we  find  those  qualities  oper- 
ating to-day. 

It  is  not  until  the  fourteenth,  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries 
in  Italy,  Flanders  and  north  Germany  that  one  encounters 
financial  types  very  like  those  with  which  we  have  been  very 
recently  dealing.  Italy  of  the  Renaissance  found  a  most  inter- 
esting specimen  of  this  type  of  mind  in  Cosimo  I.  of  the  Medici 
— "Pater  Patriae,"  as  he  was  called — who  was  little  more  than 
a  very  active  Vanderbilt  I.  of  his  day.  The  family  first  con- 
ducted a  successful  pill  business,  then  Cosimo  engaged  in 
the  banking  business.  Being  a  financier  he  secured  control 
of  nearly  all  the  financial  channels  of  Italy,  France,  Greece, 
a  portion  of  Egypt,  and  the  Lowlands.  It  is  charged  that  he 
brought  about  the  death  of  one  or  two  enemies  in  Florence,  not 
because  he  disliked  them,  but  because  he  thought  they  were 
dangerous  to  his  interests,  and  once  he  came  very  near  to  being 
gibbeted  himself.  He  was  a  patron  of  the  arts,  not  so  much 
because  he  was  emotionally  and  poetically  enthusiastic  about 
art  as  because,  as  at  present,  it  was  a  distinguished  thing  to 


THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER  77 

be.  The  trick  of  currying  favor  via  art  patronage  is  old. 
His  descendants,  having  less  of  his  force  and  more  of  the  refine- 
ment which  invariably  follows  wealth,  did  more  for  art  and 
less  for  trade,  and  so  while  we  see  the  Medici  family  identified 
with  the  most  brilliant  period  of  Italian  art  we  also  see  it 
slowly  sinking  into  financial  and  political  insignificance.  That 
it  finally  degenerated  and  passed  out  is  no  reflection  on  the  sig- 
nificance of  Cosimo,  his  primary  import.  Although  the  coldest 
and  most  financial  of  them  all,  he  was  also  the  best. 

This  was  equally  true  of  Louis  XIV  of  France  and  Frederick 
the  Great  of  Germany,  organizing  and  financial  types  both, 
although  monarchs  by  birth. 

England  has  had  its  full  share  of  the  type  in  the  officers 
and  directors  of  its  famous  East  India  Company  (Warren 
Hastings,  for  one)  and  their  efforts  to  monopolize  and  exploit 
the  Indian  Empire,  as  well  as  in  the  very  excellent  Rothschild, 
who  flourished  at  the  time  of  the  Battle  of  Waterloo  and  who 
stood  behind  a  tree  to  view  the  battle  in  order  that  he  might 
decide  for  himself  which  side  was  going  to  win  and  so  get  to 
London  and  the  stock-market  first.  There  he  spread  the  report 
that  England  had  lost  so  that  the  already  trembling  stocks 
of  the  nation  might  tumble  and  he  be  able  to  buy  them  for  a 
song.  When  he  had  gathered  in  all  the  shares  he  could  carry 
he  gave  out  the  correct  news  of  the  victory  and  reaped  his 
harvest.  Dishonest?  As  you  choose  to  look  at  such  things. 
But  when  has  high  finance  been  honest,  or  let  us  say,  consider- 
ate of  the  interests  of  others?  The  financial  history  of  this 
particular  individual  is  so  selfishly  single-minded  as  to  be  al- 
most ridiculous,  suggesting  a  power  which  invents  man  for  one 
purpose  and  no  other,  as  generals,  saints  and  the  like  are  in- 
vented. 

In  America,  the  history  of  our  financiers  is  so  full  of  thiev- 
ery and  selfishness  as  to  appear  comic  were  it  not  for  the 
mass  misery  which  so  many  of  their  deeds  involved.  Stephen 


78  THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER 

Girard,  for  instance,  stole  his  employers'  ship  at  the  outbreak 
of  the  American  Revolution  (pretending  it  had  been  sunk,  of 
course),  and  with  the  proceeds  opened  a  wine  and  cider  busi- 
ness in  Philadelphia.  John  Jacob  Astor  drugged  the  Indians 
-with  fire-water  and  bought  their  furs  for  a  song,  as  well  as 
bribed  Government  agents  to  permit  him  so  to  do.  J.  P. 
Morgan  senior  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  sold  the 
Government  five  hundred  of  its  own  condemned  rifles  for 
twenty-two  dollars  each,  after  having  but  the  moment  before 
bought  them  from  the  Government  for  three  dollars  and  fifty 
cents  each,  and  that  with  money  borrowed  on  the  strength  of 
the  proposed  contract.  (History  of  the  Great  American  For- 
tunes, Myers,  Vol.  II.,  page  172.)  Cornelius  Vanderbilt  black- 
mailed the  United  States  Steamship  Company,  plying  between 
New  York  and  California,  in  the  amount  of  nearly  $500,000  a 
year  by  threatening  to  operate  a  rival  line.  (Ibid.  Vol.  II., 
pp.  1 20- 1 2 1.)  Jay  Gould  robbed  the  various  States  through 
which  his  railroad  ran  and  drove  some  of  his  rivals  to  suicide. 
Russell  Sage  robbed  the  city  of  Troy  of  a  railroad  and  bribed 
the  Minnesota  and  other  State  Legislatures.  (Ibid.  Vol  II., 
pp.  1 2-1 6.)  The  record  is  too  long  to  be  more  than  mentioned 
here;  those  interested  should  read  Myers'  remarkable  work, 
in  which  the  crimes  as  well  as  genius  of  our  long  line  of  money 
kings  are  described  in  full. 

That  the  world  has  always  been  troubled  with  the  huge 
financial  innovator  and  the  self-seeker  is  of  course  a  common- 
place; the  objection  to  him  has  been,  as  a  rule,  that  he  has 
too  few  human  traits.  Like  the  astronomer,  the  mathematician, 
the  philosopher  and  the  historian,  his  thoughts  are  more  or  less 
remote  from  the  concerns  of  the  ordinary  individual,  although 
his  dealings  are  with  him.  To  do  anything  which  is  to  be  of 
benefit  to  the  individual  it  requires  the  mind  that  sees  the  indi- 
vidual en  masse  rather  than  in  particular.  Indeed,  the  thing 
that  has  always  confronted  the  individual  of  ability  since  the 


THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER  79 

beginning,  aside  from  his  own  inner  driving  emotions,  ambi- 
tions and  needs,  is  this  same  organized  need  of  the  mass  as  rep- 
resented in  constitutions,  governments,  declarations,  which  in 
order  to  advantage  himself  be  must  flatter,  satisfy  or  exploit — 
but  which  he  must  meet  in  some  way  or  fail.  And  only  when 
the  organized  sense  of  the  mass  becomes  sufficiently  intelligent 
for  it  to  act  in  concert  is  it  possible  to  sweep  away  or  even  curb 
the  individual.  For  the  individual  and  the  mass  are  interde- 
pendent facts,  and  the  one  cannot  escape  the  other,  try  as  each 
may. 

But  never,  apparently,  previous  to  the  French  Revolution, 
which  was  a  revolt  against  centralized  and  hereditary  construc- 
tive craft  and  ingenuity,  had  it  occurred  to  the  world,  or  rather 
the  mass,  to  rout  these  individuals  and  make  pariahs  of  them, 
although  the  world  in  recent  days  has  developed  an  es- 
pecial aptitude  for  it,  one  must  admit.  England,  which  is  not 
so  much  a  democracy  as  an  ordered  hierarchy  of  powers,  largely 
financial  in  character,  has  never  felt  called  upon  to  drive  these 
gentlemen  from  their  positions  or  quarrel  with  them  for  the 
often  singular  and  fantastic  manner  in  which  they  have  achieved 
their  success,  or  the  indifference  they  may  have  displayed  to- 
ward the  millions  below  them.  The  gentlemen  at  the  top  may 
or  may  not  have  intentionally  done  anything  for  the  peasants 
at  the  bottom  in  the  past,  but  until  very  recent  days  they  have 
not  been  asked  to  relinquish  their  control  of  the  machinery. 
Yet  now  the  world  presents  another  angle  to  this  proposition: 
the  organizer  and  financier  is  being  suspected  and  harried  every- 
where. Only  in  America,  the  home  of  anti-financial  legislation, 
the  multi-millionaire  is  apparently  becoming  safer  than  ever 
and  more  powerful.  Yet  to  the  economist,  the  historian,  the 
student  of  politics,  it  is  already  a  truism  that  economic  reforms 
are  not  and  never  have  been  permanent;  also  that  no  one,  how- 
ever self-interested,  ever  succeeds  wholly  in  working  for  himself. 


8o  THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER 

He  must  do  something  for  the  mass  if  he  is  to  do  anything  for 
himself.  It  is  a  condition  of  life,  not  a  theory. 

The  trouble  in  America,  in  so  far  as  this  type  of  mind  is  or 
was  concerned,  is  or  was  this:  that  when  it  appeared  it  came 
rather  speedily  and  roughly  into  contact  with  the  pen-written 
notion  or  ideal  embodied  in  our  American  Declaration  that 
all  men  are  born  free  and  equal,  and  that  they  are  possessed 
of  certain  inalienable  rights,  among  which  of  course  are  those 
of  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  And  these  latter 
were  not  supposed  to  be  interfered  with  by  financiers  or  or- 
ganizers seeking  power.  Yet  the  race  has  always  been,  and 
will  so  remain,  of  course,  to  the  swift,  the  battle  to  the  strong; 
chemical  and  physical  laws  not  being  easily  upset  by  fiats  of 
government.  Time  and  chance  still  continue  to  operate  as 
before,  sometimes  to  destroy  the  strong,  sometimes  to  destroy 
the  weak.  The  best  that  can  be  said  for  the  theories  laid  down 
in  the  American  Declaration  is  that  they  do  more  credit  to  the 
hearts  of  those  who  penned  them  than  to  their  heads.  Yet 
that  these  sentiments  so  expressed  should  have  moved  to  bring 
about  a  conflict  between  the  American  individual  and  the 
American  mass  might  well  have  been  foreseen,  although  curi- 
ously it  has  not  yet  done  so.  Other  countries  without  any 
Declaration  are  far  more  alive  to  their  inalienable  (so-called) 
rights  than  is  America,  if  one  may  judge  by  recent  develop- 
ments in  Russia  and  elsewhere.  All  good  things  may  be  and, 
no  doubt,  are  gifts,  but  they  are  not  conferred  by  governments, 
any  more  than  death  and  disaster  can  be  prevented  by  govern- 
ments. Sometimes  innate  strength  and  fortuitous  circum- 
stances help  some  of  us,  yet  this  merely  illustrates  once  more 
the  truism  that  nature  "plays  favorites"  and  that  many  are 
vastly  better  equipped  than  others. 

A  great  voice,  for  instance,  is  a  gift,  and  cannot  be  acquired 
at  any  school  or  for  any  price;  the  beauty  of  a  woman,  how- 
ever modest  or  staggering,  is  a  gift  and  cannot  be  purchased 


THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER  81 

or  even  manufactured  (amazing  as  that  may  seem  in  the  face 
of  all  the  drug  companies),  although  ugliness,  apparently,  can 
almost  be  wished  on  a  person,  so  lavish  is  life  with  its  dis- 
favors. The  ability  to  paint  a  great  picture,  to  design  a  great 
building,  to  lead  an  army,  to  organize  a  government,  to  con- 
struct a  philosophy,  to  dream  a  religion,  is  a  gift  and  cannot  be 
added  to  any  one  by  taking  thought,  however  quickly  it  may  be 
taken  away.  Neither  can  the  possessors  of  these  be  reduced  to 
the  level  of  those  who  have  nothing  to  offer,  no  ideas,  no 
dreams.  Christ  said  one  really  significant  thing,  "Who  by 
taking  thought  can  add  a  cubit  to  his  stature?"  If  He  had 
followed  the  logic  of  that  statement  He  would  never  have 
delivered  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  or  the  Beatitudes  and 
would  not  now  be  so  popular,  but  apparently  He  was  genius 
enough  to  be  illogical. 

What  has  confronted  the  American  organizing  genius, 
now  known  as  a  captain  of  industry,  a  multi-millionaire,  3 
financier  and  the  like,  has  been — aside  from  a  mass  need  for 
this,  that  and  the  other  and  his  desire  to  supply  it  in  order 
that  he  might  improve  his  own  condition,  strengthen  his 
own  individuality,  etc. — this  same  pen-written  theory 
about  all  men  being  free  and  equal.  Free  they  might  be  to 
begin  with,  one  might  hear  him  saying  to  himself — to  a  very 
limited  extent,  anyhow — but  equal  to  himself,  however  much 
they  might  be  equal  one  to  another,  never.  It  became  his 
business,  therefore,  as  he  soon  found  and  as  he  afterwards 
phrased  it,  to  "drive  a  horse  and  wagon  through  the  Constitu- 
tion," or  indeed  any  other  law  that  might  be  devised  to  stop 
him  and  his  dreams.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  financial 
genius,  American  or  other,  anywhere  or  at  any  time,  ever 
stopped  to  consider  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  law  or  a 
Declaration  of  Independence  or  a  Constitution  when  he  began; 
or,  if  he  did,  it  was  as  something  to  be  evaded  or  overcome. 
To  the  aggressive  organizing  mind  life  is  and  always  has  been 


82  THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER 

a  free  and  practically  uncharted  sea.  It  finds  itself  blazing 
with  an  impulse  to  get  some  one  new  thing  done;  it  conceives 
some  great  scheme,  is  inspired  with  some  great  enthusiasm  for 
something;  and  thereafter  all  else  is  as  nothing.  Being  strong 
and  magnetic  and  enthusiastic,  it  rushes  in  where  it  is  generally 
assumed  angels  fear  to  tread  and  seizes  upon  all  which  it  deems 
may  aid  it  in  its  dreams.  The  average  man  is  of  as  little  sig- 
nificance to  such  a  temperament  as  a  stalk  of  grain  to  a  reaper. 
Any  ideal  other  than  its  own  is  likely  to  be  looked  upon  as  an 
impediment.  But  always,  of  course,  there  exists  the  tramping 
mass  of  lesser  individuals  who  have  been  going  to  school  and 
church  and  there  learning  (in  America  at  least)  all  the  religious 
and  copy-book  maxims,  which  argue  that  the  world  was  made 
for  the  individual  and  that  he  was  born  free  and  equal,  each 
as  good  as  any  other  and  each  called  upon  to  aid  the  other; 
and  these  begrudge,  and  always  have  and  always  will,  these 
great  giants  their  power.  They  often  fight  them  and  sometimes 
beat  them. 

But  they  are  not  to  be  wholly  undone  by  them  at  any  time, 
anywhere.  Like  the  Lilliputians,  the  mass  as  often  succeeds  in 
binding  Gulliver  with  their  threads  as  Gulliver  succeeds  in 
tearing  through  their  petty  stays.  The  twain  are  ever  being 
born  side  by  side  in  nature;  the  giant  and  the  pygmy,  the  shark 
and  the  bluefish,  the  whale  and  the  minnow.  "Look,"  cry 
the  minnows  to  their  fellows,  "this  whale  imagines  he  is  bet- 
ter, wiser,  greater,  than  we!  He  moves  in  larger  ways,  disturbs 
our  great  sea,  taking  his  choice  of  the  realms  and  pleasures  of 
life.  Why  should  this  be?  Are  we  not  as  good  as  he?  And  yet 
he  does  all  these  things  which  we  cannot;  he  breaks  the  law 
which  governs  the  average  minnow,  whereas  we  cannot.  There- 
fore he  must  be  evil.  We  will  seize  and  bind  him  and  so  end 
his  privileges,  if  not  him."  Immediately  and  always,  at  this 
point,  there  arises  an  intermediate  figure  or  group,  the  sophis- 
ticated "advocates  of  the  people,"  "tribunes  of  the  people," 


THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER  83 

individuals  less  powerful  than  the  giants,  though  shrewder  than 
the  pygmies,  their  employers,  many  of  whom  are  sincere  enough 
in  their  conviction  of  unselfishness;  others  self-seekers  and 
charlatans  purely,  yet  each  and  every  one  crying  that  he  will 
deliver  the  mass  from  its  bondage,  and  actually  attempting,  or 
pretending,  to  adjust  the  impossible  demands  of  the  people  with 
the  almost  impossible  individualism  of  the  egoist.  But,  honest 
or  dishonest  as  they  may  be,  the  mass  is  never  made  quite  free; 
the  financiers  or  individuals  are  never  wholly  curbed.  Both 
merely  proceed  to  develop  new  issues  and  new  battlefields. 

Personally  I  believe  that  most  of  us  would  prefer  that  the 
mass  should  not  sweep  away  the  individual,  for  each  of  us 
would  prefer  to  be  somebody  in  however  small  a  way  rather 
than  mere  unrecognizable  cogs  in  a  machine  or  bees  in  a  bee- 
hive. At  best,  we  are  little  more  than  that;  even  our  greatest 
individuals,  individual  as  they  may  seem.  They,  too,  are  but 
minute  factors  in  the  total  machinery,  little  able  to  forefend 
against  disaster  or  the  ultimate  nothingness  that  swallows  them. 
But  one  thing  is  sure:  the  individual  in  the  course  of  the  de- 
velopment of  his  dreams  and  ambitions  does  scheme  out  and 
construct  or  bring  into  organic  operation  functions  which  are 
valuable  to  mass  prosperity,  and  on  that  score  there  is  scarcely 
any  fault  to  be  found  with  him. 

The  thing  that  might  seriously  concern  a  thinking  American 
would  be  whether  the  American  financial  type,  as  contrasted 
with  those  of  other  lands  and  times,  is  more  or  less  admirable. 
Greece  had  Croesus;  Rome,  Lepidus,  Hadrian;  Italy,  Lorenzo, 
the  money-gathering  Popes;  France,  Louis  XIV,  the  Baron  de 
Hirsch;  England,  the  first  Rothschild,  the  late  Cecil  Rhodes, 
Harmsworth,  Strathcona;  Japan,  Shibusawa. 

While  it  may  be  admitted  that  the  organizing  types 
developed  in  America  have  not  had  any  too  great  charm  or 
virtue  (Astor  I.,  Vanderbilt  I.,  Gould,  Sage,  Harriman,  Mor- 
gan), still  they  appear  to  compare  favorably  with  most  ancients 


84  THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER 

and  moderns.  If  they  have  done  less  for  the  arts,  as  many 
seem  to  think,  socially,  or  at  least  economically,  they  have 
done  as  much  if  not  more  than  their  predecessors.  Astor  I. 
may  have  begrudged  a  washerwoman  fifty  cents,  dunned  his 
tenants  for  rent,  debauched  the  Indians,  but  he  opened  up 
the  most  remote  portions  of  America  and  laid  the  way  for  roads 
and  railroads.  The  first  Vanderbilt  was  no  doubt  a  brutal, 
cruel  and  savage  man,  but  he  had  the  vision  which  made  a 
transcontinental  railroad  possible.  His  greed  and  vanity  made 
it  possible.  As  much  might  be  said  for  Gould,  Russell  Sage  and 
Harriman,  though  the  picture  of  Sage  keeping  apples  in  his 
desk  to  avoid  buying  lunches  for  his  friends  or  well-wishers 
and  using  his  old  plug  hats  for  umbrella  stands  in  order  to  get 
a  little  more  wear  out  of  them  could  not  be  of  much  interest 
to  the  mass  except  in  a  Dickensian  sense.  Unless  one  accepts 
the  subtleties  of  Nature  as  one  finds  them,  sees  in  all  an  in- 
explicable and  yet  biologic  or  universally  constructive  plan, 
and  in  these  riant  and  lawless  individuals  a  scheme  of  hers  to 
achieve  something  quickly,  there  is  nothing  very  admirable  or 
even  explicable  about  the  dark  goings  to  and  fro  of  such  types 
as  the  late  J.  P.  Morgan,  H.  H.  Rogers,  Thomas  F.  Ryan,  Wil- 
liam C.  Whitney,  or  any  of  a  score  of  other  large  fortune- 
builders  so  recently  in  control  of  stupendous  matters  here  and 
elsewhere.  They  are  not  explicable  save  as  motivating  forces 
in  the  hands  or  will  of  higher  powers — good,  bad  or  indifferent. 
Seen  at  close  range  they  are  more  suggestive  of  sharks  and 
we  of  sniveling  bluefish,  and  it  is  plainly  to  our  best  interests 
either  to  keep  out  of  their  way  or  unite  firmly  to  oppose  them 
in  whatever  way  we  can,  unless  we  choose  to  be  promptly 
eaten. 

Yet  are  they  any  worse  than  their  prototypes  anywhere? 
The  worst  that  can  be  said  for  the  American  is  that  as  yet  no 
one  of  him  has  been  able  to  rival  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent  or 
Louis  XIV  to  gather  and  use  in  any  marked  way,  supposing 


THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER  85 

there  has  been  anything  of  importance  to  use,  the  significant 
artistic  personalities  and  materials  (American  or  general)  of 
his  time  after  the  fashion,  say,  of  a  Lorenzo,  a  Hadrian  or  a 
Can  Grande.  Perhaps  he  has  had  few  opportunities,  no 
Michelangelos  to  countenance  or  foster,  no  Raphaels  or  Leonar- 
dos to  attach  to  his  court  or  entourage.  Again  it  may  be  urged 
that  he  has  never  been  in  any  position  to  organize  or  dictate, 
being  by  no  means  in  any  free  or  superior  position  in  a  democ- 
racy such  as  this.  The  best  he  has  been  able  to  do  apparently 
is  to  buy,  although  of  course  the  power  to  patronize  nobly  and 
generously  has  to  a  certain  extent  been  within  his  range.  Still, 
a  stranger  to  our  rich  and  powerful  land  might  (I  do  not  say 
he  would)  be  struck  by  the  abject  poverty  of  a  Poe  or  a  Whit- 
man, scarcely  knowing  which  way  to  turn  for  means,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  enormous  affluence  of  so  many  financial  gen- 
iuses. Why,  one  such  might  ask,  should  either  a  writer  or 
poet  of  the  transcendent  merit  of  either  of  these  have  lacked 
a  financial  sponsor?  And  why,  the  same  inquiring  mind  might 
ask,  was  there  no  Maecenas  to  befriend  the  late  George  Inness, 
Harris  Merton  Lyon,  or  MacDowell,  the  musician?  But  in 
other  ways — via  libraries,  gifts  to  art  museums,  schools  and 
universities — he  would  have  to  admit  that  the  American  multi- 
millionaire has  done  quite  as  well  as  the  others;  only,  in  so 
far  as  I  can  see,  he  has  in  the  main  lacked  the  insight  to  con- 
nect his  gifts  with  an  impulse  toward  the  truest  art  values  and 
realms  of  mental  freedom  and  refinement.  Too  often,  as  in 
the  case  of  our  universities,  his  gifts  have  been  far  too  subtly 
identified,  aside  from  purely  technical  progress,  with  mental 
retrogression,  or  at  least  the  perpetuation  of  religious  and 
moralistic  dogma  not  compatible  with  the  truest  mental  de- 
velopment. At  the  same  time  the  retort  might  be  that  it  has 
never  been  a  part  of  the  organizing  ability  of  any  money 
genius  anywhere  to  plan  for  true  mental  progress.  It  may 


86  THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER 

not  be  necessary.  Life  may  be  taking  care  of  that  "on  its 
own,"  as  the  phrase  runs. 

However  that  may  be,  one  cannot  help  thinking  how  inte- 
resting it  would  have  been  if  in  New  York  or  elsewhere  any 
one  of  the  above-mentioned  men  had  in  his  day  troubled  to 
gather  about  him  in  some  private  court  a  representative  group 
of  intellectual  and  artistic  personalities,  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
testifying  to  his  interest  in  that  side  of  life,  if  nothing  more. 
After  all,  the  living  individual  is  worth  something,  and  any 
one  of  our  financiers  might  have  done  what  no  American  of 
wealth,  as  far  as  I  know,  has  as  yet  done:  invested  some  of  his 
boundless  wealth  in  personality.  Or  he  might  have  endowed  a 
wholly  independent  magazine  or  newspaper  or  theatre,  of  which 
there  is  at  present  not  one,  or  a  school  of  special  learning  free 
from  dogmatic  interference,  or  a  publishing  house,  or  a  uni- 
versity which  should  have  been  a  true  university  and  not  one 
devoted  to  the  economic  or  social  or  religious  theories  or  moods 
of  any  particular  period.  The  strangest  lack  or  flaw  in  the 
American  organizing  financial  temperament,  in  so  far  as  I  can 
see,  is  or  has  been,  hitherto,  its  inability  to  see  either  character 
or  significance  in  anything  save  movements  which  tend  to  fur- 
ther the  most  material  financial  aims:  railroads,  butcher-com- 
panies, electricity,  gas,  typewriter  and  other  purely  mechanical 
or  material  organizations.  Yet  possibly,  up  to  the  present  time, 
the  land  has  only  needed  things  of  this  kind.  And  perhaps 
the  next  generation  will  make  amends.  Who  knows?  Thus 
far  there  has  been  little  if  any  tendency  to  invest  in  anything 
save  such  art  or  art  forms  as  have  been  heralded  by  time. 

To  this  day,  ancient  Asiatic,  Egyptian  and  European  art 
forms  continue  to  pour  in  on  us  in  a  brilliant  phantasmagoric 
stream,  until  we  threaten,  or  did,  to  drain  the  world  of  its 
treasures.  Our  private  mansions  groan  with  the  antiquated 
skill  of  Asia  and  other  continents,  but  of  these  other  matters, 
or  the  cultivation  or  preservation  of  a  single  living  personality, 


THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER  87 

not  a  word.  It  is  possible  to  go  forth  and  raise  any  reasonable 
or  even  unreasonable  sum  for  any  number  of  useless  or  surplus 
charitable  organizations  or  hospitals  or  churches,  whereas  if  it 
were  a  question  of  cash  for  a  truly  civilizing  movement  of  some 
kind,  or  a  personality,  the  obstacles  would  prove  well  nigh  in- 
surmountable. Some  of  the  trashiest  homes  I  have  ever  had 
the  misery  of  beholding  have  been  those  of  men  of  tremendous 
wealth  and  alleged  refinement,  stuffed  to  overflowing  with 
bogus  furniture  and  art.  Yet,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  are 
they  to  blame?  Are  they  not  specialized  machines  sent  here 
for  a  purpose?  And  should  one  expect  more?  Verily  we  have 
our  reward  in  their  practical  achievements.  .  .  .  Yet,  also, 
when  one  looks  at  them  one  cannot  help  remembering  that  Walt 
Whitman  lived  in  a  back  street  in  Camden  and  depended  upon 
a  friendly  admirer  to  bring  him  a  fish  for  his  supper;  that  Poe 
lived  in  a  hut  in  the  woods,  unable  to  achieve  or  afford  a  more 
suitable  abode.  I  am  not  quarreling;  I  cite  these  as  interesting 
facts. 

An  interviewer  once  questioning  me  in  regard  to  the  signi- 
ficance of  the  American  financial  type  (it  was  just  after  I  had 
published  "The  Financier"),  raised  the  question  as  to  whether 
the  American  financial  type,  then  so  abundant  and  powerful, 
had  ethically  the  right  to  be  as  it  was  or  do  as  it  was  doing, 
seeing  that  it  was  being  and  doing  about  as  it  pleased.  My 
answer  was,  and  I  still  see  no  reason  for  changing  it,  that,  in 
spite  of  all  the  so-called  laws  and  prophets,  there  is  apparently 
in  Nature  no  such  thing  as  the  right  to  do  or  the  right  not  to 
do,  if  you  reach  the  place  where  the  significance  of  the  social 
chain  in  which  you  find  yourself  is  not  satisfactory.  The  mur- 
derer has  under  the  written  law  no  right  to  murder  anybody. 
It  is  perfectly  plain  that  he  has  the  right  if  he  is  willing  to  pay 
the  penalty,  or  if  he  can  evade  it.  Conscience,  this  thing  called 
conscience  to  which  people  repeatedly  appeal,  is,  as  I  have 


88  THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER 

pointed  out  elsewhere,  little  more  than  a  built-up  net  of  social 
acceptances  and  agreements  in  regard  to  society  or  the  agreed 
state  of  facts  in  which  we  all  find  ourselves  when  we  arrive 
here;  in  other  words  all  the  things  which  we  wish  to  do  and  be, 
or  avoid.  It  is  not  anything  save  an  inherent  condition  of 
balance  in  Nature  which  desires  and  achieves  a  very  rough 
equation,  but  nothing  which  works  exact  justice  to  any  individ- 
ual anywhere.  The  so-called  "still,  small  voice,"  ever  present 
at  one's  inner  or  spiritual  ear,  is,  if  it  is  anything  at  all,  a  sense 
of  self-preservation  and  conditional  desire  for  equation  or  peace 
— stillness,  rest,  lack  of  friction. 

It  is  true  that  the  individual  may  not  always  agree  with  the 
ethics  of  his  time,  or  that  he  may  smack  of  anything  but 
sweetness  and  light,  may  even  seem  a  little  gross  or  terrible; 
but  if  he  prove  essential,  as  he  nearly  always  does,  his  revolt 
against  the  commonplace  fixity,  rigidity  and  the  like  of  the 
slower-moving  man  cannot  be  looked  upon  as  either  wholly 
evil  or  in  vain.  Indeed,  if  he  did  no  more  than  throw  a  new 
light  on  this  strange  phantasmagory  called  existence,  then, 
ethics  or  no  ethics,  he  would  have  been  worth  while  and  it 
would  make  no  essential  difference  whether  he  agreed  with 
passing  theories  or  not.  Apparently  the  world,  or  let  us  say  the 
race,  is  moving  along  in  some  curious  way  to  possibly  a  larger, 
more  widespread  condition  of  complexity  and  articulation,  part 
with  part  (variety  in  unity,  unity  in  variety),  and  a  self-sen- 
sating  intellectual  perception  and  appreciation  of  the  same. 
Who  knows?  But  beyond  that,  what?  Is  man  better,  purer, 
more  spiritual,  more  generous  than  ever  he  was?  Do  any 
of  the  savages  or  animals  lack  any  of  the  emotional  or  chari- 
table traits  which  we  possess?  Observe  the  wolf  with  its 
young;  the  cat;  the  dog;  the  lion.  Are  not  all  swayed  by 
conditioning  laws  of  subsistence  and  which  they  obey,  but 
nothing  more?  True,  they  kill  to  eat,  to  preserve  themselves. 
Has  man  ever  done  less — or  more? 


THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER  89 

Any  naturalistic  philosopher  can,  of  course,  trace  all  the 
steps  for  you,  how  it  is  that  you  have  come  to  be  seemingly 
so  different,  although  he  cannot  tell  you  why  or  where  you 
are  going.  My  own  guess  would  be  that  we,  or  rather  the 
race,  is  going  on  to  a  greater  individuality,  plus  a 
greater  weakness  as  to  its  component  and  clinging  atoms, 
providing  it  does  not  suffer  an  endless  dark  age  of  mass 
control  or  total  extinction  in  some  form  or  other.  Nietzsche 
appeared  preaching  individuality,  greater  individuality  for 
everybody  who  could  achieve  it,  and  to  a  certain  extent  he  was 
right.  Greater  individuality  than  the  world  has  yet  seen  will 
certainly  be  achieved  by  some.  Schopenhauer,  before  him,  an- 
nounced that  only  failure  for  the  individual  was  possible,  and 
to  a  certain  extent  he  was  right  also.  The  two  saw  the  over- 
soul  from  different  angles.  Again,  Marx,  the  humanitarian, 
appeared  preaching  solidarity  for  the  mass  and  mass  control, 
and  his  work  will  probably  result  in  greater  material  battles 
between  the  individual  and  the  mass  than  any  yet  witnessed. 
If  one  stands  with  the  individualists,  as  one  may  well  do,  and 
believes  that  there  are  no  laws  created  by  mass  conditions 
and  necessities  which  the  individual  should  not  be  allowed  to 
break  for  the  subsequent  good  of  the  mass,  and  also  that  the 
mass  only  moves  forward  because  of  the  services  of  the  excep- 
tional individual,  then  one  will  be  compelled  to  agree  with 
Nietzsche  that  it  is  folly  not  to  wish  that  the  significant  individ- 
ual will  always  appear  and  will  always  do  what  his  instincts 
tell  him  to  do.  On  the  other  hand  if  one  feels,  as  so  many  of 
the  less  well-equipped  do,  that  in  the  long  run  and  in  the  plan 
of  Nature  itself  the  individual  is  nothing,  the  type  all,  and  that 
mass  conditions  favoring  the  production  of  many  of  the  best 
type  are  most  important,  then  the  airs  and  dreams  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  regard  to  his  personal  satisfaction  and  satiation  will 
not  seem  so  important,  the  general  welfare  of  each  individual 
of  the  mass  more  important  than  anything  else.  And  this  will 


90  THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER 

mean  that  always  the  special  individual,  the  genius  of  any 
kind,  will  be  curbed  and  restrained  if  not  actually  pushed  into 
the  background.  And,  in  the  main,  life  proves  this  nearly  all 
the  time.  Attempts  at  world  domination  on  the  part  of  one 
individual  and  another  have  proved  failures,  as  witness  Darius, 
Alexander,  Hannibal,  Napoleon,  the  Kaiser. 

Yet  theories  and  doxies  wear  thin  with  the  course  of  time, 
and  the  "still,  small  voice"  of  one  age  is  not  the  "still,  small 
voice"  of  the  next,  strange  as  it  may  seem.  At  best,  all  we 
have  is  the  individual,  not  always  financial,  by  any  means,  or 
artistic,  but  one  who  has  dreamed  out  something:  music,  a 
picture,  poetry,  a  machine,  a  railroad,  an  empire — anything,  in 
short,  that  man  as  race  or  nation  can  use  or  rejoice  in.  If  to 
have  a  Woolworth  Building,  a  transcontinental  railroad,  a 
Panama  Canal,  a  flying  machine,  to  say  nothing  of  literature 
and  art,  means  that  we  must  endure  a  man  who  is  dull,  greedy, 
vain,  ridiculous  in  many  ways  or  even  an  advocate  of  every 
conceivable  vice  in  order  to  twist  his  brain  into  some  strange 
phantasmagorical  tendency,  the  result  of  which  will  be  some 
one  of  these  things,  there  are  many  who  would  enthusiastically 
say,  "Then  let  us  have  him  along  with  all  his  lacks  or  vices, 
in  order  that  this  other  may  be."  If  it  is  a  question  of  having 
a  Villon  or  not,  provided  we  cannot  have  him  without  having 
a  thief  at  the  same  time,  then  the  same  or  another  group  would 
cry,  "Let  us  have  the  thief  and  the  poem  concerning  the  'Snows 
of  Yesterday.'  "  For  my  part  I  am  convinced  that  so-called  vice 
and  crime  and  destruction  and  so-called  evil  are  as  fully  a  part 
of  the  universal  creative  process  as  are  all  the  so-called  virtues, 
and  do  as  much  good — providing,  as  they  do,  for  one  thing, 
the  religionist  and  the  moralist  with  their  reasons  for  existing. 
At  best,  ethics  and  religion  are  but  one  face  of  a  shield  which 
is  essentially  irreligious  and  unethical  as  to  its  other  face,  or 
the  first  would  not  exist. 

For  myself,  then,  I  cannot  say  that  personally  or  socially  the 


THE  AMERICAN  FINANCIER  91 

American  or  any  other  financier,  as  I  have  investigated  him,  ia 
not  as  satisfactory  as  may  be,  all  things  considered.  Artisti- 
cally thus  far  he  is  not  much  to  survey,  but  a  giant  or  a  Titan 
he  certainly  has  been.  As  for  the  majority  of  them,  they  were 
by  no  means  presentable  or  even  acceptable  socially,  but  what 
would  you?  They  were,  in  the  main,  too  ignorant,  too  insis- 
tent on  their  own  views,  too  self-hypnotized  by  their  own 
dreams  of  self-advancement  and  dominance.  A  leader  of 
polite  society  anywhere,  for  instance,  might  not  be  willing  to 
welcome  a  Russell  Sage,  a  Jay  Gould,  or  a  John  W.  Gates  or  his 
wife,  or  indeed  any  other  American  financial  type  thus  far 
known,  and  this  solely  on  the  ground  of  expediency  or  social 
or  artistic  fitness  or  unfitness  for  the  lighter  forms  of  living,  but 
that  in  itself  proves  nothing.  It  could  truthfully  be  said,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  it  would  scarcely  be  possible  to  admit  the 
average  society  man  to  the  threatening  precincts  of  radical 
energy  or  thought  in  any  form.  One  thing  is  sure:  the  indi- 
vidual cannot  wholly  understand  the  mass,  nor  the  mass  the 
individual.  Both  have  their  significance,  their  place,  but  if 
one  were  to  say  of  either  that  it  or  he  alone  had  claim  to  sig- 
nificance as  a  helpful  factor  in  life,  or  as  dramatic  or  artistic 
material,  or  as  a  spectacle,  one  would  be  greatly  mistaken. 
Both  have.  All  have. 


THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER 

A  TRILOGY 


"The  ears  to  hear!     The  beauty 
Of   life   is   unceasingly   calling. 
The  eyes  to  see!     Its  glory 
Is  ever  unfolding  anew!" 

THE  toil  of  the  laborer  is  artless.  There  is  in  it  neither 
form,  nor  color,  nor  tone.  For  months  I  have  been 
working  as  only  workingmen  work,  and  in  the  dreary  round 
of  the  hours  it  has  come  to  me  that  the  thing  which  is  weari- 
some and  disheartening  about  it  is  that  it  is  utterly  devoid 
of  art.  In  the  construction  of  a  building,  for  instance,  whereat 
we  labored  for  three  long  months,  I  discovered  that  with  each 
day's  labor  I  was  in  contact  only  with  that  which  was  formless 
and  colorless  and  toneless.  Huge,  misshapen,  disheartening 
piles  of  brick;  commonplace,  indifferent  and  colorless  masses  of 
stone,  wood,  iron,  sand,  cement;  bone  and  sinew  of  what  was 
to  be,  but  in  themselves  devoid  of  all  that  could  appeal  to  the 
eye  or  touch  the  heart,  and  scattered  about  in  such  an  aimless 
way  as  to  bring  to  the  mind  nothing  but  a  wearying  sense  of 
disorder.  This  disorder,  however,  as  soon  became  clear  to  me, 
was  not  apparent  in  a  definite  way  to  all  those  who  worked 
amidst  it.  These  mixers  of  mortar  and  carriers  of  brick  toiled 
in  the  grime  and  dust  without  seeming  to  realize  that  it  was  a 
wretched  condition,  hard,  grim  and,  so  far  as  the  sum  of  their 
individual  lives  was  concerned,  but  meagerly  profitable.  Car- 

92 


THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER  93 

penters,  masons  and  iron-workers  went  sturdily  about  their 
labors,  but  the  artless  and  unlovely  nature  of  their  work  was 
over  it  all,  and  despite  their  seeming  unconsciousness  to  it  one 
felt  the  drag  of  its  absence,  their  eagerness  to  get  away, 
their  innate  yearning  to  be  where  things  were  not  in  the 
making,  the  urge  to  be  out  in  the  larger  and  more  perfect  world 
where  form  and  color  and  tone  do  abound. 

For,  after  all,  in  the  main,  things  do  stand  complete,  as  we 
see  them.  The  hills  have  their  enduring  roundness,  the  trees 
their  perpetual  forms.  Landscapes  and  skylines  are  not  torn 
and  scraped  as  in  the  vicinity  of  some  (comparatively)  minute 
constructive  labor.  Nature  is  nearly  always  cunningly  pleas- 
ing to  the  eye  on  the  surface,  whatever  may  go  on  below, 
whereas  the  average  constructive  processes  are  so  often  dis- 
cordant, broken,  disordered. 

Seeing  this,  and  not  being  able  in  my  own  consciousness 
to  explain  why,  my  heart  was  sad  and  I  wondered  why  life 
should  be  thus  grimly  organized ;  why  formlessness  in  the  parts 
of  the  thing  to  be  formed;  why  tonelessness  in  that  which 
when  laboriously  organized  would  be  all  tone;  why  colorlessness 
in  that  which  in  the  end  would  enliven  the  heart  with  color  and 
dance  before  the  eye  a  perfect  thing. 

In  the  progress  of  the  work,  however,  it  was  given  me  to 
see  that,  in  the  production  of  all  things  here,  there  is  at  bot- 
tom this  very  formlessness  innate.  For  to  organize  and  per- 
fect one  thing  we  must  take  from  and  destroy  another;  and 
in  doing  that  we  fly  in  the  face  of  that  which  we  most  desire: 
order  and  harmony.  Therefore,  if  we  would  have  that  which 
the  inexplicable  urge  for  something  new  and  more  beautiful 
commands,  we  must  apparently  steel  our  hearts  against  the 
old  and  destroy  it,  although,  having  committed  the  offense  of 
destruction,  we  must  repay  or  balance  by  the  labor  of  con- 
struction. 

It  is  not  given  to  all  of  us  to  follow  the  ramifications  of 


94  THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER 

Nature's  planning  nor  to  see  wherein  justice  or  the  seeming 
injustice  lies.  Most  of  those  about  me — average  short-reason- 
ing creatures — took  their  labor  drearily  enough  and  were  not 
able  to  see  in  any  definite  inspiriting  way  the  approaching 
beauty  of  that  which  their  hands  were  building.  It  did  not 
concern  them.  Many  of  them  came  and  labored  but  a  little 
while,  doing  but  a  minute  portion  of  that  which  was  to  be 
the  whole,  seeing  only  the  mass  and  chaos  of  it  without  ever  ob- 
taining one  glimpse  of  the  loveliness  which  was  to  be. 

But  when  the  labor  had  been  completed,  when  the  mortar 
had  been  mixed  and  the  brick  and  stone  removed  from  their 
uneven  masses  and  set  in  order,  when  the  wounds  of  the  earth 
had  been  smoothed  over,  the  scattered  debris  removed  and 
the  grass  allowed  to  grow,  when  in  the  light  of  the  restful 
evening  there  rose,  in  this  instance,  high  in  the  air  a  per- 
fect tower,  buttressed,  arched  and  pinnacled,  with  here  a 
window  reflecting  the  golden  Western  glow  and  there  a  pillar 
standing  out  in  delicate  relief  against  the  perfect  background 
of  the  sky,  the  meaning  of  the  chaos  came  home.  Here  it 
was:  color,  form,  tone,  beauty.  The  labor  of  the  excavator, 
the  toil  of  the  iron-worker,  the  irritating  beats  of  the  car- 
penters' hammers,  the  mess  and  disorder  of  the  field  of  action, 
had  all  blended  together  finally  and  made  this  perfect  thing — 
only  they  were  no  longer  a  part  of  it.  To  most  of  them  it  was 
all  but  meaningless.  Having  labored  on  but  portions  of  it  they 
could  scarcely  conceive  it  as  a  whole. 

And  yet  as  I  looked  my  heart  rose  up,  and  I,  for  one,  was 
thankful  to  have  been  in  part  a  worker,  to  have  worked  a  little, 
to  have  wearied  a  little,  to  have  sighed  a  little,  that  so  lovely 
a  thing  might  be. 

IL 

The  toil  of  the  laborer  is  thoughtless.  There  is  in  it  neither 
conception  nor  initiative  nor  the  development  of  that  which 


THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER  95 

is  new.  Though  the  hands  labor  and  the  body  bend,  the  heart 
is  not  in  it.  It  is  all  a  weariness  and  a  travail  of  the  flesh, 
and  the  profit  is  unseen. 

In  a  certain  factory,  not  far  from  the  heart  of  the  city  of 
New  York,  I  worked  as  a  laborer.  My  duty  was  to  carry 
shavings  and  lumber  and  to  sweep  the  floor.  All  day,  from  the 
blowing  of  the  whistle  at  seven  in  the  morning  to  its  welcome 
blast  at  six  at  night,  my  body  was  busy  bending  and  lifting 
in  the  effort  to  keep  the  floor  clean  of  shavings  and  supplying 
a  half-dozen  machines  with  lumber.  The  slow,  unchanging, 
imperative  nature  of  the  work,  the  fact  that  I  went  on  whether 
one  man  came  or  another  one  stayed  away,  the  dreary  per- 
sistence with  which  it  was  necessary  to  repeat  the  same  mo- 
tion day  after  day,  week  after  week,  month  after  month,  year 
after  year,  was,  to  the  thinking  and  restless  mind,  madden- 
ing. 

In  this  factory  at  the  time  there  ruled  a  foreman  well 
fitted  to  the  scheme  of  things.  He  was  a  strange,  egotistic, 
vainglorious  soul,  with  a  mind  so  set  up  by  the  fact  that  he 
had  been  foreman  of  this  little  shop  that  there  was  no  living 
with  him.  He  was  arbitrary;  his  word  was  law.  With  an  air 
that  might  have  become  a  tragedian,  he  walked  about  his 
domain  and  glared  upon  each  and  all,  meditating  upon  his 
exalted  position.  Every  word  was  either  a  command  or  a  re- 
proof, and  in  times  of  excitement  or  depression,  such  as 
naturally  flow  from  the  hurry  or  the  lack  of  work,  he  was  al- 
ways about,  venting  his  humor  or  wrath,  as  his  mood  dic- 
tated. 

This  situation,  coupled  with  the  meager  wages,  the  enormous 
wealth  of  the  corporation  which  controlled  it  all,  the  utter 
indifference  of  those  who  sat  at  the  top  to  those  who  worked 
at  the  bottom,  was  a  difficult  thing  to  endure.  It  was  so  very 
apparent  to  any  one  who  thought  that  the  work  of  those  at 
the  bottom  was  entirely  without  point  save  as  a  means  of 


96  THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER 

subsistence.  To  lift  and  carry,  to  move  along  given  lines  and 
within  certain  limits — this  was  the  sum  and  substance  of 
wisdom  required,  and  it  mattered  little  who  did  it.  Some 
small  personal  characteristics  figured  in,  such  as  whether  a 
man  was  naturally  quick  or  slow,  good-humored  or  ill-humored 
and  the  like,  but  the  main  point  was  to  do  the  work  as  con- 
ceived, planned,  initiated  and  developed  by  some  one  above. 
And  this  could  be  acquired  until  it  was  not  a  matter  of  thought 
but  of  rote.  What  you  thought  or  how  you  felt  was  not 
involved. 

One  of  its  pathetic  aspects  was  that  it  was  involved  with 
the  maintenance  of  a  condition  which  was  not  necessarily 
beneficial  or  worthy  of  approval.  So  many  of  the  owners, 
for  whom  these  thousands  upon  thousands  of  individuals  la- 
bored, were  mere  idlers  in  society,  social  loafers,  daily  bul- 
letined as  the  chief  factors  in  a  dozen  trivial  amusements, 
and  as  wholly  unconscious  of  this  under-condition  which 
made  for  their  situation  and  pleasure  as  if  it  did  not  exist  at 
all.  For  every  motion  and  bending  here,  some  one  else  was 
deriving  the  privilege  not  to  move  or  bend  there.  It  was  as  if 
some  untoward  power  were  momentarily  taking  something 
from  each  of  these  and  giving  it  to  some  one  who  did  not  even 
know  whence  it  came. 

And  the  saddest  part  of  it  was  that  these  toilers,  born  for 
the  most  part  to  a  condition  and  with  brains  unsuited  to  any- 
thing much  better,  were  still  not  so  dull  that  they  could  not 
see,  and  that  rather  plainly,  how  scurvily  Nature  was  using 
them,  with  what  a  vast,  contemptuous  indifference.  It  was 
little  to  Her  whether  they  lived  or  died,  did  poorly  or  well. 
Most  of  them  were  mere  machines  who  had  acquired  the  little 
they  knew  by  observing  others,  who,  if  they  were  capable  of 
thinking  at  all,  were  restricted  by  the  nature  of  their  labor 
in  utilizing  thought,  and  yet  they  could  see  so  plainly  that 
those  above  them  did  very  little  or  nothing,  and  received  much, 


THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER  97 

so  much  more.  It  was  one  of  those  situations  in  which  labor, 
a  mere  round  of  motions,  took  the  place  of  thought  and  left 
them  weary  and  disinterested  at  the  close  of  the  day,  not  fit  to 
originate  a  thought  if  it  had  been  possible  or  necessary. 

And  yet,  after  a  time,  it  occurred  to  me  that  it  was  not, 
perhaps,  so  much  the  thoughtlessness  of  it  that  was  so 
wretched  as  that  any  human  being,  toiling  to  his  full  capac- 
ity, should  not  receive  more  of  the  legitimate  profits  of  his 
labor.  These  men,  ignorant  and,  in  a  way,  valueless  without 
direction,  were  nevertheless  useful  creatures  and,  in  this  sense 
if  no  other,  were  deserving  of  a  far  more  reasonable  share  of 
the  profit  which  their  efforts  created.  That  it  should  not  be 
so,  that  despite  their  willing  or  non-willing  they  should  be 
driven  early  and  late  to  create  a  surplus  which  was  not  di- 
rectly applied  to  the  pressing  needs  of  society  as  a  whole, 
but  to  the  frittering  amusements  of  the  few,  not  much  better 
in  the  main  than  themselves,  seemed  hard. 

And  yet  sometimes  when  I  looked  out  upon  the  world  as  it 
glimmered  before  my  windows — when  I  saw,  as  it  so  chanced, 
the  waters  of  the  river  flowing  by,  the  splendid  boats  riding 
at  anchor  or  steaming  peacefully  past,  and  the  wonder  of  the 
hills  and  hollows,  all  set  suggestively  before  the  eyes — it  came 
to  me  that,  perhaps,  in  spite  of  the  seeming  injustice  involved 
in  this  situation,  variety  was  as  essential  to  happiness  as  so- 
called  justice  or  equation,  and  that  the  very  inequalities  I  was 
bemoaning  were  the  things  which  I  was  admiring  in  Nature. 
To  blot  out  the  light  and  the  shadows,  to  remove  the  hills  and 
dales,  to  take  away  the  far  reaches  which  spread  between  lux- 
ury and  want,  idleness  and  toil — might  not  these  be  the  things 
which  after  all  would  rob  life  of  much  of  its  value  and  charm? 
Might  they  not? 

But  as  I  turned  again  to  the  weariness  of  my  labor  and  saw 
once  more  the  routine,  the  comparative  slavery,  the  drag  of 
almost  endless  hours,  I  could  not  help  wishing  for  each  that 


98  THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER 

there  might  be  some  better  solution  than  this  necessity  for 
variety — that  perhaps  the  heights  and  hollows  need  not  after 
all  be  so  vast.  To  survey  a  mountain,  to  view  a  desert — was 
not  this  the  privilege  of  but  a  few?  And  might  not  the  true 
beauty  of  life  exist  in  the  way-places  where  are  neither  heights 
nor  depths  but  only  a  tender  and  appealing  undulation?  I 
wondered,  and  still  do,  for  in  spite  of  endless  personal  incon- 
venience I  have  never  been  able  to  believe  that  an  unbreakable 
dead  level  of  equality  should  maintain,  that  none  should  suffer 
overmuch,  that  none  should  want  to  the  extreme.  And  yet 
at  this  time,  in  this  place,  the  less  varied  seemed  the  all-to-be- 
desired.  That  it  was  not  to  be  found  in  so  starkly  diversified 
a  world  as  here  offers  did  not  lessen  the  pain  of  the  labor  or 
the  value  of  the  ideal  in  the  least.  To  work,  to  wait,  to  hope, 
to  pray  for  some  such  change — how  important  these  loomed  in 
the  hour  of  weariness!  And  yet  the  charm  that  hope  cast 
over  effort  was  as  though  the  difference  had  already  in  part 
been  bridged  and  that  the  realization  of  the  ideal  was  almost 
at  hand. 


III. 


The  toil  of  the  laborer  is  without  mercy,  its  grim  insistence 
unrequited  by  anything  save  the  meager  wages  wherewith  it  is 
paid.  There  is  no  true  beauty  in  it,  no  tenderness.  There  is 
no  thought  of  anything  save  what  muscle  and  the  strength  of 
the  individual  can  be  made  to  yield.  More  than  this,  the  sum 
of  what  is  accomplished  passes  almost  entirely  into  other 
hands.  There  is  no  provision  made  for  those  who  will  be  as 
tattered  remnants  when  the  things  for  which  they  labored 
have  been  accomplished. 

For  several  months  I  worked  with  the  laborers  for  a  great 
railroad.  It  was  the  kind  of  labor  that  falls  to  the  lot  of  every 
man  who  is  unskilled  and  whose  sense  of  honesty  or  compulsion 


THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER  99 

or  duty  or  need  commands  that  he  labor.  Those  with  whom  I 
worked  were  employed  to  carry  lumber,  load  brick,  shovel  earth 
and  mix  mortar.  The  work  was  requited  at  the  rate  of  fifteen 
cents  an  hour,  and  nothing  more  than  this  was  allowed  for 
overtime.  We  worked  nine  or  ten  hours  a  day,  as  the  light 
permitted.  There  was  no  rest  for  those  here  employed  save 
in  a  form  of  subterfuge,  which  was  as  wearisome  as  the  toil 
itself  to  one  not  accustomed  to  it  by  long  years  of  practice. 
To  be  sure  one  might  delay  in  the  carrying  of  anything;  it  was 
possible  to  be  deliberate,  to  hang  first  on  one  foot  and  then 
the  other;  there  was  a  way  of  resting  on  one's  pick  before 
lifting  it;  but  the  gam  was  scarcely  worth  the  pains.  At  the 
close  of  the  day  the  sum  of  idleness  thus  secured  would  not 
be  sufficient  to  produce  a  restful  feeling,  and  the  knowledge 
that  a  watchful  foreman  was  well  aware  of  the  spirit  of  your 
labor  was  not  conducive  to  comfort. 

We  were  under  a  foreman  whose  conception  of  life  was  that 
it  meant  toil,  and  who  himself  was  perfectly  equipped  physical- 
ly to  meet  it.  He  did  not  stop  to  parley  or  temper  the  neces- 
sities with  tenderness  but  shouted  and  cursed  his  commands, 
the  fulfilling  of  which  was  as  much  of  a  burden  on  his  mind 
as  upon  our  bodies.  Work  there  was  in  plenty,  vast  quan- 
tities of  labor  extending  into  the  weeks  and  years,  and  the 
only  thought  which  the  conclusion  of  one  hard  day's  toil  could 
bring  was  that  there  was  another  exactly  like  it  tomorrow. 
It  had  no  end  for  the  individual  save  in  arbitrary  cessation  on 
his  part,  the  ending  of  his  pay,  or  in  disintegration  and  death. 
And  need  drove  so  many  to  continue  day  after  day,  without 
rhyme  or  reason  in  so  far  as  the  individual  was  concerned. 

I  could  not  help  pondering  over  this  from  time  to  time, 
wondering  at  the  lust  of  the  controlling  powers  at  the  top  for 
money  and  place,  the  fierceness  of  Nature  in  placing  such  an 
impulse  in  them,  the  fierceness  of  the  temper  of  our  imme- 
diate masters  (general  managers,  superintendents,  foremen  and 


ioo  THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER 

the  like) ,  the  persistence  of  their  frowns,  the  manner  in  which, 
when  anything  was  delayed  or  the  work  went  wrong,  they  vis- 
ited the  blame  upon  the  heads  of  those  beneath  them,  the 
urge  and  blame  finally  falling  with  sharp  effect  upon  the  car- 
riers and  serfs  at  the  bottom.  Life  did  not  seem  to  require 
or  justify  it,  I  often  thought.  The  rewards  achieved  by  those 
at  the  bottom  at  least  were  too  inconsiderable.  The  enormous 
and  almost  useless  surplus  of  this  great  corporation  flowering 
out  into  exotic  social  forms  at  the  top  was  proof  that  it  was  an 
unjust  exaction.  A  man  should  be  a  man  in  spite  of  the  orders 
of  his  superiors.  Mercy  and  tenderness  should  qualify  our 
every  deed.  ...  So  it  looked  from  the  bottom. 

And  then  one  day  I  was  made  a  foreman. 

I  was  determined  that  I,  as  foreman,  would  hold  per- 
sistently, through  whatever  wearinesses  might  come,  to  this 
earlier  creed  of  courtesy  and  consideration.  I  told  myself  that 
I  would  do  better  than  these  others.  There  should  be  no 
harshness  in  my  tone.  I  would  not  swear.  A  moderate  effort 
would  be  demanded  of  my  men,  but  nothing  more.  So  much 
for  good  intentions. 

In  this  new  capacity  I  found  that  my  duties  were  of  a 
different  nature  from  those  of  my  former.  Here,  instead  of 
running  at  the  beck  and  call  of  another,  I  had  men  running 
for  me.  I  had  from  a  dozen  to  fifteen  men  under  me,  as 
the  work  varied,  and  my  principal  duty  was  to  see  that  they 
did  not  shirk. 

I  accepted  this  with  a  light  heart.  It  seemed  easy  enough, 
something  which  could  be  accomplished  in  the  most  gracious 
spirit.  All  I  had  to  do  was  to  take  my  position  beside  my 
gang,  humming  a  tune,  and  to  watch  (as  I  thought)  their 
progress  with  a  gentle  and  merry  heart. 

How  speedy  and  how  sad  was  my  disillusionment! 

Before  one  day  was  gone  I  was  made  to  feel  that  the 
pressure  which  was  on  me  from  above  must  be  transferred 


THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER  101 


to  those  who  were  below,  regardless.  There  were  orders  to  be 
complied  with,  periods  to  be  observed,  standards  of  quality  to 
be  maintained  in  certain  kinds  of  work,  which  my  men  did  not 
always  understand.  Nor  did  an  explanation  or  a  simple  re- 
quest always  result  in  understanding  or  ready  willingness  to 
comply.  They  were  often  tired,  a  night's  rest  not  always  ap- 
parently repairing  the  weariness  of  the  day  before.  None 
were  so  dull  that  they  could  not  see  that  many  reaped  where 
they  had  not  sown,  took  joy  in  that  for  which  they  had  never 
paid,  while  others  like  themselves  sweated  under  a  load  which 
they  had  never  willed  to  carry.  Dark  looks,  dark  moods, 
dark  wishes  were  as  common  as  ever,  yet  if  my  own  position 
or  my  superior's  good  will  were  worth  anything  to  me  I  could 
not  allow  them  to  fall  below  their  quota  of  toil.  It  was  neces- 
sary to  achieve  a  given  result,  or  resign,  and  at  every  turn 
there  were  rules,  rules,  rules. 

How  hard  I  tried  to  adjust  my  new  relationship  to  the  ideal 
which  had  previously  been  mine,  and  at  the  same  time  comply 
with  the  rules  of  the  company,  I  will  not  say.  For  a  time  I 
did  manage  to  keep  a  cheerful  attitude  and  to  speak  gently. 
I  tried  to  overlook  the  indifference  and  subterfuge  which  I  knew 
they  were  practicing  and  which  before,  in  part  at  least,  had 
seemed  justifiable  but  which  must  also  in  part  be  overcome, 
if  life  were  to  go  on  at  all.  For  Nature,  as  I  had  come  to 
see,  had  established  these  inequalities,  the  smallness  of  mind 
in  some,  the  strength  and  vision  in  others.  Who  was  I  to  set 
about  establishing  exact  justice  or  equation,  where  I  had  not 
created?  Or  how  or  where?  Or  I  might  smile  and  smile 
and  urge  with  pleasant  compliments,  but  how  did  that  justify 
or  make  amends?  And  although  for  a  time  it  seemed  as 
though  I  might  succeed  in  avoiding  all  difficulty,  still  the 
memory  of  my  own  recent  feelings  was  too  fresh  not  to  influence 
me  deeply. 

Then  came  a  day  when  the  pressure  of  work  to  be  done  was 


102  THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER 

so  much  greater  than  it  had  been  before  that  the  usual  subter- 
fuge of  the  men  became  an  irritation  to  me.  They  were  pain- 
fully and  exasperatingly  slow,  if  not  without  reason,  and  the 
pressure  on  me  from  above  was  heavy  also.  A  heavy  rain  had 
washed  the  earth  into  a  long  trench  which  we  had  been  excavat- 
ing. It  was  necessary  to  hurry  the  reopening  of  this  in  order 
not  to  delay  other  work.  Concrete  had  to  be  prepared,  a  large 
foundation  set  by  a  given  date.  We  were  under  urgent  sur- 
veillance from  our  superiors  and  could  but  follow  out  their 
orders  or  resign. 

In  this  situation  I  confess  that  I  did  not  do  much  parley- 
ing with  my  sense  of  equation  or  justice.  Although  I  knew 
these  men  to  be  in  the  main  underpaid  and  overworked,  and 
in  so  far  as  the  corporation  was  concerned  mere  machines 
to  be  pushed  to  the  limit  of  their  capacity  and  discharged 
when  no  longer  useful,  still  I  stood  beside  them  and  ordered 
and  commanded,  urging  first  one  and  then  the  other  with  shouts 
and  gruff  words,  until  at  last  they  were  as  wrought  up  and  as 
harried  by  me  as  they  had  been  by  any  one  of  whom  I  had 
previously  complained.  They  were  driven,  harassed  by  me, 
until  one,  irritated  by  the  anachronism  of  it  all,  no  doubt,  my 
previous  enthusiasm  for  better  conditions,  turned  on  me  with: 
"Yes — hurry!  Hurry!  You  didn't  work  so  hard  yourself, 
though!" 

I  paused  in  my  ordering  and  walked  aside  a  little  space  to 
consider.  How  true  was  the  thing  he  said !  I  had  not  worked 
so.  It  had  been  a  constant  complaint  with  me,  in  my  own  mind 
at  least,  that  so  much  insistence  and  heartless  driving  had 
never  been  justified  by  the  reward  offered,  that  the  men  were 
entitled  to  more  than  they  received  for  the  grudging  toil  they 
gave.  And  here  was  I  outdoing  these  drivers  who  to  me  had 
seemed  most  brutal! 

For  that  day  then,  and  for  many  others,  I  tried  to  discover 
just  how  it  was  that  I  had  drifted  into  so  rough  and  exacting 


THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER  103 

an  attitude.  Did  I  not  know  now,  as  well  as  before,  that  the 
corporation  for  which  we  were  all  working  was  enormously 
rich?  Had  I  not  more  evidence  than  before  that  the  men 
were  overworked  and  underpaid,  my  own  demands  proving  it? 
Could  I  not  see  in  the  orders  given  me  that  there  was  no 
consideration  for  them,  but  only  the  thing  to  be  accomplished 
at  the  least  possible  expense? 

I  acknowledged  freely  that  this  was  absolutely  true,  and 
yet  I  now  pleaded  with  myself  that  I  saw  no  way  to  remedy 
it  and  that  if  I  did  not  fulfill  the  company's  orders  some  one 
else  would.  The  work  had  to  be  done.  There  was  no  way 
of  permitting  these  men  to  shirk  and  take  their  time,  without 
noticeably  delaying  the  work.  If  the  corporation  was  to  be 
run,  its  present  efficiency  maintained  and  the  public  served,  it 
would  of  course  have  to  be  done  at  a  profit  which  would  induce 
men  of  initiative  and  skill  at  the  top  to  serve;  otherwise  no 
man  would  undertake  the  matter,  and  there  would  be  no 
labor  at  all  for  any  of  these  men  at  the  bottom.  For  Nature 
apparently  went  on  the  theory  of  great  reward  for  those  who 
could  or  would  originate  and  conduct  in  a  large  way,  little 
for  those  who  could  not;  and  these  at  the  bottom  did  not  and 
apparently  could  not  originate.  Their  reasoning  powers  were 
not  as  yet  sufficiently  developed  for  that.  They  were,  by 
reason  of  their  mental  equipment,  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water. 

After  a  time  I  felt  that  I  could  no  longer  go  on  without 
making  a  definite  choice:  I  must  serve  them  or  their  masters 
wholeheartedly.  The  retort  of  the  laborer  had  proved  too 
great  a  shock,  and  it  was  long  before  I  recovered  my  exterior 
equanimity,  and  never  again  my  internal  peace,  here.  Plainly 
I  was  not  one  called  by  nature  to  this  task.  Reason  as  I 
would,  the  two  elements  of  capital  and  labor,  exacting  strength 
and  helpless  weakness,  would  not  adjust  themselves  within  my 
consciousness  save  in  some,  such  rough  way  as  I  here  saw 


104  THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER 

operating,  and  so  because  of  my  natural  sympathy  for  these 
underlings  I  was  forced  in  spite  of  myself  to  choose  sides. 
Either  I  must  relinquish  my  former  attitude  of  sympathy  for 
the  men  and  opposition  to  the  indifference  of  the  company, 
or  I  must  side  with  them.  There  could  be  no  middle  ground, 
and  until  I  should  choose  my  conscience  would  give  me  no 
peace. 

It  was  after  a  particularly  hard  day's  work  and  because 
of  some  special  conditions  that  I  managed  finally  to  reach 
a  decision,  which,  however  much  it  may  have  benefited  me, 
helped  them  in  no  least  way.  We  had  been  mixing  concrete 
and,  a  touch  of  my  old  cynical  uncertainty  dominating  me,  I 
had  been  driving  them  all  the  day  long,  urging  one  to  shovel 
faster,  calling  to  another  to  bring  the  wheelbarrows  of  stone 
almost  before  they  were  needed,  sending  this  one  for  water 
and  that  one  for  cement,  until  the  men  were  running  about 
like  ants.  About  four  o'clock  of  this  long  day  it  began  to 
rain.  It  had  been  gray  and  lowery  all  day  but  now  the 
moisture  descended  in  a  fine  drizzle  and  we  were  compelled 
to  work  or  leave  unfinished  the  batch  of  concrete  we  were 
just  beginning.  In  a  sullen  mood,  because  of  my  own  dreary 
part  in  this,  I  stood  and  held  them  to  their  task,  not  caring 
much  what  became  of  them  or  myself  either,  until  at  last  the 
work  was  completed.  At  dusk,  damp  and  dreary,  I  took  my 
lunch-box  and  tramped  doggedly  along  the  tracks  toward  the 
depot,  comforted  by  one  thought  only:  that  the  day  was  over 
and  I  myself  was  free. 

It  was  at  that  hour  when  the  traffic  outward  from  the 
great  city  assumes  its  most  imposing  aspect.  Along  this  mag- 
nificent highway  of  steel  were  speeding  the  trains  of  one  of 
the  wealthiest  corporations  in  the  world.  Limiteds  were 
passing,  their  splendid  interiors  aglow  with  half  a  hundred 
lights.  Seemingly  more  prosperous  citizens  than  we  were 


THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER  105 

reclining  there  in  comfort.  Others  were  gazing  out  idly.  The 
dining  cars  of  various  trains  were  set  with  silver  and  white 
linen. 

As  I  paused  near  the  station  to  turn  my  eye  on  this  truly 
appealing  scene  and  to  gather  its  significance  as  contrasted 
with  that  which  I  had  just  left,  there  passed  by,  going  in  my 
direction,  the  little  procession  of  Italians  over  whom  I  ruled, 
bearing  with  them  the  tools  with  which  they  had  been  labor- 
ing. There  was  Philip,  whom  I  had  often  noted  as  I  stood 
beside  the  trench  in  which  he  was  working,  his  body  all  twisted 
and  bent  from  long  years  of  unremitting  toil;  there  was  An- 
gelo,  old  and  leathern  in  feature,  whose  one  boast  was  that  he 
had  never  missed  a  day's  work  in  seventeen  years;  there  was 
Matteo,  thin,  spare,  worn-looking,  whose  eye  was  alight  with 
a  kindly  humor  and  whose  willingness  to  work  I  had  never 
been  able  to  question;  there  were  John  and  Collarbrace  (as 
we  called  one  Calabrian),  Mussolin  and  Jimmie,  all  trudging 
patiently  onward  like  cattle,  the  day  of  their  labor  having 
brought  forth  nothing  but  a  night  of  weariness. 

And  as  I  stood  there  looking  at  them  I  could  not  help  con- 
trasting the  weariness  of  their  labor  with  this  (one  of  many, 
many),  flowers  which  it,  or  labor  like  it,  had  produced  at  the 
top.  Here  was  this  immerse  corporation  with  its  magnificent 
equipment,  its  palatial  depots,  its  comfortable  trains  speeding 
onward  bearing  their  burdens  of  the  comfortable  (?)  and  the 
more  fortunate  (?),  and  here  at  the  very  bottom  were  these 
humble  trudgers  making  their  way  homeward  in  the  night  and 
the  rain.  And  as  I  thought  of  the  meagerness  of  their  wages, 
the  manner  in  which  I  had  driven  them,  and  the  profitless 
luxury,  in  so  far  as  they  were  concerned,  to  which  their  labor 
trended,  I  resolved  that  I,  for  one,  would  have  nothing  more 
to  do  with  it. 

Not  to  drive  where  I  could  not  ease,  not  to  urge  where  I 


io6  THE  TOIL  OF  THE  LABORER 

could  not  repay,  not  to  be  a  tool  in  the  hands  of  their  indif- 
ferent masters  who  could  not  or  would  not  interest  themselves 
in  them,  was  something,  even  though  my  ceasing  could  not 
relieve  them  of  their  toil. 


PERSONALITY 

IN  the  last  analysis  personality  appears  to  be  a  sense  of 
power  resting  on  a  feeling  of  capability  or  wisdom  and  use- 
fulness, and  hence  a  right  to  be;  or  this  may  be  reversed  for 
some  and  it  be  said  to  be  a  sense  of  capability  or  usefulness 
which  springs  from  inherent  wisdom  and  power.  At  best  it  is 
inexplicable  to  the  individual  himself.  He  does  not  know  from 
whence  it  comes,  why  he  has  it,  why  he  of  all  people  should 
have  it  and  so  many  other  billions  not,  why  his  thoughts 
should  be  large  where  those  of  others  are  so  small,  his  cunning 
or  subtlety  great  where  those  of  so  many  others  are  obviously 
less.  If  he  has  in  addition  any  charm  of  character,  being 
thus  endowed,  he  will  be  courteous,  considerate,  merciful;  but 
it  by  no  means  follows  that  he  must  so  have  or  be.  That 
would  not  explain  an  Attila,  an  Alaric,  a  Can  Grande  or  a 
Torquemada. 

"Why  should  I  be  born  with  a  great  mind,"  a  Caesar,  a 
Shakespeare,  a  Hannibal  or  a  Leonardo  might  well  have  asked 
of  himself,  "whereas  so  many  have  little  ones?  Why  is  my 
frail  bark  speeded  by  winds  of  destiny  or  chance  over  favorable 
seas  to  power,  where  so  many  are  beached  or  foundered  en 
route?  Did  I  make  myself?  Did  I  foreknow  all?"  Where  so 
profound  an  egoist,  even  with  a  minute  brain,  to  claim  so 
much? 

The  truth  is  all  good  things  are  gifts,  a  voice,  strength  of 
body,  vigor  of  mind,  vision,  the  power  to  lead,  as  in  war,  any 
art,  beauty,  charm.  This  is  not  to  say  that  these  things  may 
not  be  technically  improved,  and  are,  but  this  is  the  business 
with  which  mediocrity  is  chiefly  concerning  itself.  I  know 

107 


lo8  PERSONALITY 

that  the  world,  where  it  lacks  the  strength  to  think  on 
the  subject,  thinks  differently,  but  this  is  mere  nonsense  and 
without  import. 

The  man  of  personality  or  destiny  realizes  the  guidance,  en- 
mity or  favor  of  not  necessarily  higher,  we  will  say,  but  dif- 
ferent powers.  (I  am  not  for  saints,  guardian  angels,  Buddhas, 
Christs,  perfect  gods  all.)  He  realizes  all  too  keenly  the  ele- 
ment of  chance,  luck,  unpropitious  as  well  as  propitious  hours. 
Sometimes,  in  spite  of  himself  and  to  his  wonder,  he  notes  that 
his  affairs  prosper.  "There  is  a  tide — "  At  other  times  (and 
who  has  not  realized  this?),  try  as  he  will,  he  had  better  lay 
aside  all  effort  and  disappear.  Fortune  will  have  none  of 
him.  The  furies  hover  over  his  path.  Harpies  beset  him.  Go 
where  he  will,  there  will  be  elements  to  annoy  him,  if  no  more 
than  an  ill  wind  to  blow  his  cap  away  or  to  cast  dust  into  his 
eyes.  He,  above  all  others,  knows  that  time  and  chance  happen 
to  all  men. 

But  it  is  so  easy  to  cite  the  old-time  virtues  of  honesty, 
stability,  truthfulness,  fair-dealing,  etc.,  as  proving  character, 
its  value,  and  the  power  of  any  one,  however  weak  or  defec- 
tive, personally  to  achieve  it.  But  always,  in  spite  of  the 
advocates  of  simple  and  normal  and  moral  things  as  proving 
in  themselves  genius  and  worth,  there  is  something  more — 
magnetism,  for  instance,  a  thing  not  necessarily  or  solely  a  part 
of  these  other  so-called  virtues,  and  strength,  assurance,  cour- 
age, generous  or  the  reverse.  These  are  not  things  of  ethical 
import  necessarily,  but  they  make  for  success  just  the  same. 
Observe  that  youth  admires  color,  flare,  pugnacity,  brute  cour- 
age and  daring;  middle  age,  knowledge  of  sorts,  aggressive- 
ness, endurance,  success;  old  age,  wisdom,  generosity,  humility, 
etc.  How  many  of  the  former  are  ethical?  In  the  quiet  halls 
of  learning  or  reflection  certain  of  the  tabulated  virtues  may 
be  extolled,  but  to  whom  does  the  world  pay  attention,  to 
whom  has  it  paid  attention?  Darius,  Artaxerxes,  Alexander, 


PERSONALITY  109 

Caesar,  Hannibal,  Attila,  Alaric,  Peter  the  Hermit,  Napoleon, 
the  Kaiser;  possessing  what  of  all  these  virtues?  Caesar  kind, 
patient,  honest,  truthful?  Napoleon  the  same?  Antony  the 
same?  Attila  the  same?  Not  even  the  popes,  the  preachers, 
the  founders  of  religion  were  so.  Always  craft,  force,  diplo- 
macy; but  little  of  the  sacrificial  media  so  extolled  and  com- 
mended to  the  rank  and  file  in  order  to  keep  them  at  rest. 

It  is  significant  of  the  intellectual  development  of  America, 
if  not  of  other  countries,  that  we  hear  less  these  days  of 
character,  that  something  or  somewhat  which  we  were  all  sup- 
posed to  have,  or  at  least  develop  for  ourselves  or  make  (!)  a 
la  Washington,  Lincoln,  Grant,  etc.,  who  in  most  American 
schoolbook  essays  and  college  addresses  were  and  still  are 
supposed  to  have  made  their  skill,  endurance,  resourcefulness, 
etc.;  and  more  of  that  other  thing  which  we  call  personality 
and  which  for  a  long  time  apparently  we  were  not  supposed 
to  have,  that  unexplainable,  inescapable  something  with  which 
we  come  and  in  which  even  here  in  America  we  are  now  begin- 
ning to  believe.  Yes,  we  are  beginning  to  suspect  that  there 
are  certain  things  which  some  of  us  cannot  do,  however  much 
we  may  wish  or  try  to.  Also  that  ability  in  many  realms 
and  forms  comes  without  volition  on  our  part,  fate  and  cir- 
cumstance causing  it  to  blaze  for  us  whether  we  will  or  no. 
After  many  volumes  of  another  kind  of  mush,  this  is  at  last 
becoming  rather  apparent.  There  is  less  talk  now  of  being 
Napoleons  all,  adding  inches  to  our  stature  by  taking  thought 
(lifting  ourselves  by  our  boot-straps,  in  other  words),  and  more 
of  plain  effort  according  to  our  especially  inherited  abilities 
or  capacities.  It  is  a  sad  truth  for  most  men,  more  especially 
for  most  Americans,  when  they  discover  it,  but  it  is  neverthe- 
less an  economic  and  helpful  one.  Men  do  better  once  they 
realize  their  genuine  limitations  and  cease  reaching  for  the 
moon.  For  so  very  long,  here  in  America  at  least,  we  have  been 


no  PERSONALITY 

fed  on  something  so  very  different:  our  inalienable  ability  to 
do  anything  and  everything  equally  well. 

One  wonclers  at  times  whether  the  light  is  really  breaking. 
Can  it  be  that  we  are  getting  ready  to  admit  that  we  are 
not  Csesars  each  and  all,  held  back  by  our  own  idleness  and 
indifference?  One  begins  to  rub  one's  eyes.  I  have  often  won- 
dered why  it  is  that  the  word  "common,"  in  its  sense  of 
being  plentiful  and  therefore  indifferent,  has  not  struck  home  to 
the  many  of  us  for  what  it  is:  an  expression  of  contempt;  and 
that  "uncommon,"  "extraordinary,"  denote  approbation.  Why, 
if  this  is  not  true,  should  everything  that  is  common  be  held 
so  lightly  of  the  mass,  whereas  that  which  is  special  or  indi- 
vidual, inherited  or  no,  is  of  such  intense  interest  to  it?  For 
example,  the  individual  skill  or  personal  traits  of  the  actor, 
painter,  writer,  sculptor,  the  exceptionally  talented  in  any 
field? 

The  truth  is  that  the  average  man,  dull  as  he  is,  realizes 
quite  well  that  a  creature  who  has  little  or  nothing  that  is 
different  from  millions  of  his  kind  is  of  small  import  here  or 
anywhere.  There  is  no  especial  demand  for  what  he  has  to 
offer.  If  he  wishes  to  stand  out  above  his  fellows  he  must 
bring  something  new,  and  this  he  cannot  provide  by  mere 
wishing  or  thinking.  There  is  something  more  than'  that — 
inherent  capacity,  a  something  which  he  cannot  create  for  him- 
self, try  as  he  may.  He  also  knows  that  Nature  sends  bub- 
bling up  from  her  inexhaustible  springs  an  infinitude  of 
creatures  who  are  of  small  import,  because  they  have  no  in- 
herent power  wherewith  to  develop  very  special  characteristics, 
or  better  yet  individual  impulses — in  other  words,  personality. 
They  cannot,  and  are  not  asked  to,  create  them  after  they 
arrive  here.  They  must  have  them  to  begin  with,  or  they  are 
not  important,  cannot  make  their  way  easily.  And  again,  it 
is  obviously  quite  right  that  a  creature  with  qualities 
except  those  of  the  species  should  have  to  confine  its  claim  to 


PERSONALITY  in 

an  existence  entirely  within  the  limits  of  the  species,  and  live 
a  life  conditioned  by  them.  If  Nature  wishes  one  to  rise 
above  the  conditions  wherewith  he  finds  himself  surrounded  at 
birth  She  usually  provides  him  with  the  equipment  for  so  do- 
ing during  gestation,  or  before,  and  in  addition  accidental  and 
most  opportune  circumstances  invariably  aid  him.  He  is  the 
heir  of  most  propitious  conditions.  Vide  Caesar,  Napoleon, 
Shakespeare,  Luther,  Lincoln,  even  Goethe.  Yet,  it  is  impos- 
sible, I  presume,  to  convince  the  mass  that  this  is  true.  It 
would  be  too  discouraging. 

Again,  it  is  a  common  fallacy  among  the  ignorant  that  no 
lower  animal  possesses  more  than  the  generic  characteristics 
of  its  species — such-and-such  powers,  such-and-such  limitations, 
such-and-such  instincts, — although  this  of  course  is  not  true. 
There  are  weak  and  strong  animals  of  the  same  species,  more 
cunning  and  less,  more  ferocious  and  less,  better-natured  and 
less,  just  as  there  are  among  men.  (If  you  do  not  believe  this 
study  cats  and  dogs,  the  historic  wolf  of  Cevennes  in  France.) 
Indeed  in  many  intellectual  circles,  so-called,  it  is  still  claimed 
for  man  that  he  is  the  only  one  to  possess  individual  charac- 
ter. But  this  is  not  true,  as  the  "Origin  of  Species"  plainly 
shows.  Sometimes  I  think  that  man,  take  him  by  and  large, 
presents  less  differences  than  some  of  the  individuals  of  species 
of  the  so-called  lower  animals.  He  is  supposed  to  reason  more, 
but  does  he?  It  seems  to  me  that  the  average  cat  reasons 
quite  as  well  as  the  average  plumber  or  grocer,  if  not  better. 
Give  a  good  pagan  tomcat  a  man's  body  and  sensory  capacity, 
and  how  long  do  you  suppose  he  would  remain  a  plumber? 
The  truth  is  that  man,  somewhat  confused  at  present  in  his 
response  to  those  chemic  instincts  which  appear  originally  to 
have  guided  him,  has  been  all  but  done  for  mentally  by  vain 
isms  and  theories.  At  times  these  same  appear  to  be  able, 
and  quite  completely,  to  do  for  him  mentally,  as  does  cancer 
and  tuberculosis  for  him  physically — vide  Christianity,  Mo- 


H2  PERSONALITY 

hammedanism,  Shintoism,  etc.  On  the  other  hand,  the  animal 
has  no  such  handicap,  let  us  say,  as  Catholicism,  Shintoism,  or 
what  Mohammed  or  Buddha  or  Zoroaster  said.  It  has  just  life 
and  its  own  bare  wits  or  chemical  responses  wherewith  to  do, 
no  restraining  and  deadening  rules.  Hence  it  has  very  marked 
personality  at  times,  and  makes  its  way  exceedingly  well  and 
without  restraint  or  deadening  aid  of  community  or  mass  gov- 
ernmental advice.  This  is  true  of  snakes,  birds,  fishes,  mon- 
keys and  all  other  creatures  lower,  so-called,  than  man. 

In  most  men,  individual  character,  that  thing  which  is  sup- 
posedly so  superior  to  lower  animals,  comes  to  very  little, 
They  run  in  schools,  join  secret  orders  or  churches,  vegetate, 
label  themselves  in  a  dull  way  democrats,  republicans,  social- 
ists, and  strive  in  all  ways  to  make  themselves  as  like  others 
(those  within  their  immediate  ken)  as  possible.  My  father, 
for  instance  (peace  to  his  spirit!),  wished  to  prepare  himself 
by  self-abnegation,  prayers  and  good  works  here  on  earth  to 
fit  himself  for  an  entirely  mythical  heaven,  to  be  a  stand- 
ardized angel — wings,  harp,  robes  and  all — such  as  he  saw  in 
the  "saint  pictures"  in  the  various  Catholic  churches  which  he 
attended  from  time  to  time.  These  were  the  only  representa- 
tions of  the  future  life  with  which  he  was  familiar,  hence  he 
accepted  them  as  true!  Indeed  as  a  rule  the  average  or 
ordinary  man  (fortunately  there  is  no  exact  average)  cannot 
think  or  see  beyond  his  quite  immediate  environment  and 
binding  rules,  his  neighborhood,  his  church,  what  somebody 
else  says  or  thinks. 

A  plumber  wants  to  be  exactly  like  the  next  successful 
plumber  he  sees;  a  grocer,  the  same;  an  undertaker,  the  same. 
Most  rich  men  would  like  to  live  in  a  house  like  that  of  all 
the  other  rich  men  they  know.  Show  them  the  very  dif- 
ferent house  of  a  rich  man  in  Spain,  in  Egypt,  in  India,  in 
Japan — it  would  never,  never  do.  It  is  not  like  that  which 
they  know.  Their  thoughts  and  desires,  like  their  faces,  are 


PERSONALITY  113 

those  of  the  species  to  which  they  belong.  In  the  main,  they 
are  of  a  trivial,  commonplace  character,  as  unimportant  as  a 
bean  or  a  pea.  Like  animals  of  so  limited  a  mentality  as  the 
duck  and  the  penguin,  if  you  know  one  you  know  all.  You 
might  almost  say  that  they  have  come  to  their  end  spiritually. 
Nothing  can  be  done  for  them.  Some  more  vigorous  active 
thing — i.  e.,  the  thinking,  restless,  dissatisfied  individual — 
must  come  along  to  rebel  and  push  them  aside.  If  ever  the 
surface  of  the  commonplace  is  to  be  disturbed  the  individual 
moved  by  some  inherited  or  bestowed  impulse  must  do  it: 
Luther,  Galileo,  Keppler,  Newton,  Columbus. 

Anything  that  is  strong,  special,  different  must,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course  and  by  its  very  nature,  stand  alone  in  the  world 
where  so  many  things  are  not  strong,  special,  different.  That 
which  places  one  being  over  another  and  sets  differences  be- 
tween man  and  man  is  not  alone  intellect  or  knowledge,  as 
some  would  have  us  believe  (Schopenhauer,  for  one),  but  these 
plus,  other  things  being  equal,  the  vital  energy  to  apply  them  or 
the  hypnotic  power  of  attracting  attention  to  them — in  other 
words,  personality.  It  is  that  peculiar  quality  or  ability  which 
makes  a  way  for  our  plans,  desires,  dreams.  Cunning,  which 
is  by  no  means  knowledge  in  the  sense  in  which  we  use  that 
word,  nor  intellect  of  a  high  order  perhaps  (although  it  may 
well  be),  still  may  play  a  magnificent  share  in  personality  and 
contribute  to  its  triumph.  No  truer  book  than  Machiavelli's 
"The  Prince,"  although  it  earned  him  the  distinction  of  equal- 
ing the  devil,  was  ever  written,  although  the  necessary  gift  of 
hypnotic  personality  was  by  no  means  sufficiently  insisted  upon. 
Was  not  one  of  the  amazing  qualities  of  Julius  Caesar,  as  of 
Hannibal,  Napoleon  and,  indeed,  most  of  the  outstanding 
figures  of  history,  cunning?  The  average  man,  realizing  his 
own  limitations,  does  not  like  to  believe  it,  but  it  is  none  the 
less  true.  Did  Alexander  the  Great,  for  instance,  lack  it?  Or 
Lincoln?  On  the  other  hand,  mere  strength  without  cunning 


Ii4  PERSONALITY 

is  so  little.  Contrast  the  tiger  and  the  Norman  horse  or  an  ele- 
phant. Which  of  the  three  is  truly  superior?  Which  one 
commands  your  innate  respect? 

Whatever  else  you  do,  believe  nothing  in  regard  to  the  in- 
dividual's ability  to  develop  an  especial  and  remarkable  ca- 
pacity, unless  it  is  already  inherent  in  him  at  birth.  Nature 
works  in  no  other  way.  Another  thing,  life  cannot  do  without 
brains,  however  much  disassociated  from  beatific  virtues  these 
may  be;  for  these  are  a  gift  and  can  no  more  be  created  here 
than  you  can  add  to  your  height  by  taking  thought.  What 
life  does  is  to  develop  and  train  especial  inherent  capacities — 
an  eye,  a  hand,  a  taste,  a  smell  perhaps;  but  the  instinct  and 
the  ability  to  foreknow,  to  appreciate,  understand — these 
things  are  not  taught  in  schools.  Schools  labor  with  them 
to  improve,  polish,  give  them  a  special  turn  or  bent ;  little  more 
and  little  less. 


A  COUNSEL  TO  PERFECTION 

BRIEF  as  are  the  sensations  of  success,  victory,  happiness, 
etc.,  yet  these  are  things  of  actually  some  duration  and 
as  such  can  be  looked  forward  to  and  back  upon  with  pleasure, 
which  in  itself  is  a  kind  of  reward  for  living.  Love  is  real,  a 
kinetic  vibration  of  great  comfort  and  a  reward,  as  well  as  are 
the  gratifications  which  arise  from  a  sense  of  wealth  or  power 
or  any  hunger  satiated.  All  these  may  be  exceedingly  brief 
and  do  fade,  but  however  brief  and  however  quickly  faded 
they  endure  for  at  least  a  minute  fraction  of  time  and  are 
therefore,  and  legitimately  so,  the  basis  of  much  human 
hope,  ambition,  delight,  as  well  as  despair  and  all  the  other 
contraries  which  might  otherwise  be  inexplicable.  The  pathetic 
thing  in  connection  with  them  all  is  that  they  are  so  plainly 
baits  as  well  as  rewards,  that  they  do  prove  man  to  be  the 
victim  or  evoluted  mechanism  if  not  tool  of  some  higher, 
perhaps  scheming  force  by  no  means  essentially  friendly  to,^ 
if  it  is  even  conscious  of,  him,  and  that  an  enduring  state  of 
pleasure  for  anything  is  not  contemplated  by  Nature  as  an  es- 
sential portion  of  the  career  of  man;  also  that  it  may  be  by  no 
means  concerned  as  to  whether  or  no  man,  its  tool,  achieves 
any  moments  of  triumph  or  satiation. 

Looking  at  most  lives — the  defeated,  the  hungry,  the  poorly 
equipped  mentally  and  physically,  the  homely,  those  seized 
on  in  childhood  by  the  strong  and  shrewd  and  made  to  serve 
pointless  and  wretched  purposes  entirely  alien  to  their  lives — 
I  should  say  that  Nature  does  not  care  and  that  distinctly  for 
them  life  may  not  be  worth  its  pains.  On  the  other  hand, 

"5 


n6  A  COUNSEL  TO  PERFECTION 

where  crass  chance  lifts  a  given  organism  to  great  power  or 
builds  it  with  such  care  that  it  is  an  almost  perfect  and  deli- 
cately responsive  machine,  life  may  well  be  and  no  doubt  is 
worth  all  its  costs.  Many  organisms,  by  accident  of  dullness 
or  non-responsiveness  of  a  higher  sort,  come  off  with  less 
pain,  and  Nature,  either  accidentally  or  intentionally,  builds 
most  of  these.  They  are  machines  well  suited  to  the  rough 
grind  of  material  and  psychic  forces,  and  may  be  said  to  strike 
such  a  neat  equation  with  the  circumstances  of  life  that  they 
achieve  a  kind  of  sensory  comfort  or  satiation  and  so  do  well 
enough.  Again,  dulling  religion  or  illusions  of  one  type  and 
another,  fatuitous  hopes  far  beyond  the  pale  of  possibility, 
sensory  response  of  a  comfortable  character  to  this  earthly 
scene  as  a  spectacle,  or  depleted  nervous  energy  or  force  which 
reduces  many  to  the  point  where  nervous  or  sensory  response  is 
lacking,  eases  many  to  the  place  where  it  may  be  said  that  if 
they  do  not  enjoy  keenly  they  at  least  do  not  suffer  keenly. 

But  is  man  happy?  Is  his  game  worth  the  candle?  The 
sophisticated  reply  that  the  fear  of  death  proves  that  life  is 
worth  while,  since  all  are  so  eager  to  avoid  it.  But  this  is 
worse  than  no  answer  for  it  predicates  either  no  life  at  all, 
which  is  certainly  no  recommendation,  or  that  there  may  be 
worse  things  there  than  those  which  befall  man  here — cer- 
tainly no  proof  of  a  keen  joy  in  this. 

The  essential  tragedy  of  life,  then,  and  the  thing  which 
makes  it  painful  to  consider,  is  this:  that  once  man  is  raised 
above  the  non-cerebrating  and  automatic  sensory  responsive- 
ness of  the  beast  he  becomes  conscious  of  the  rather  obvious 
fact  that  he  is  either  an  intelligently  or  an  accidentally  evoluted 
mechanism  or  minute  tool  in  the  hands  of  something  so  much 
more  significant  than  himself  that  he  is  as  nothing;  and  again, 
that  to  this  force  or  intelligence  above  him  his  little  earthly 
schemes  bear  about  as  much  relationship  as  do  those  of  an 
office  boy  bent  on  becoming  a  baseball  pitcher  to  those  of  the 


A  COUNSEL  TO  PERFECTION  117 

Standard  Oil  Company  or  the  German  Emperor  bent  on  world 
dominion.  And  again — and  this  is  the  darkest  thought  of  all 
— it,  our  personal  Creator,  assumed  by  the  religionists  at  least 
to  be  so  careful  of  our  individual  welfare,  may  be  little  more 
than  the  veriest  tyro  in  so  far  as  the  larger  and  largest  creative 
forces  or  impulses  in  the  universe  are  concerned.  Manifesting 
little  or  no  interest  in  us,  no  more  perhaps  than  is  needful 
to  its  own  welfare,  it  may  be  as  little  to  the  powers  above  it 
as  are  we  to  it.  For  who  can  guess  whether  the  thing  or 
power  which  makes  man  is  the  ultimate  power  or  guiding  force 
in  so  spacious  a  thing  as  the  universe?  Already  our  chemists 
and  physicists  are  inclined  to  doubt  it.  Its  impulses,  humors, 
appetites  and  methods,  as  manifest  in  man,  are  by  no  means 
of  so  glorious  or  illuminating  a  character  as  to  inspire  admira- 
tion, even  in  its  machine:  man.  Plainly  its  methods  and  ac- 
tions bespeak  as  much  of  the  lowest  as  of  the  highest  that  we 
know,  and  this  is  as  much  evidenced  by  the  thoughts,  aspira- 
tions, tastes  or  habits,  chemically  compulsory  or  no,  of  man, 
its  product,  and  through  whom  it  seemingly  expresses  itself, 
as  by  its  methods  and  procedure  in  other  ways,  fumbling  ef- 
forts and  failures  of  all  kinds.  For  man  in  his  capacity  as 
chemist,  physicist,  fumbling  philosopher,  didactic  or  synchro- 
netic  poet,  experimentator  or  agnostic  is  scarcely  a  fit  creature 
for  one  to  contemplate  as  the  highest  product  of  a  so-called 
supreme  intelligence  or  God,  or  Good,  however  well  he  might 
look  as  the  product  of  a  minor  and  so  seeking  hieratic  power. 
For  if  God,  or  Good,  as  so  many  have  already  pointed  out, 
can  do  no  better  than  produce  the  quarreling,  eating,  seeking, 
spewing  thing  we  know  as  man — and  that  is  the  chief  concern 
of  His  intelligence — ! ! ! 

We  will  assume  that  you  have  read  at  least  a  simple  work 
on  astronomy  or  chemistry  or  physics.  If  so,  could  you  pos- 
sibly believe  that  the  present  intelligence  of  man,  or  even  any 
conceivable  progress  which  he  can  make  in  his  present  limited. 


n8  A  COUNSEL  TO  PERFECTION 

form  and  with  his  present  equipment  of  senses,  would  be  oi 
sufficient  force  to  gather  either  the  meaning  or  sensory  impact 
of  spaces,  distances,  weights,  relationships  which  at  present, 
except  in  the  most  minute  and  fragmentary  way,  are  entirely 
beyond  him?  Consider  the  meaninglessness  of  numbers  to 
you,  of  great  weights,  distances.  I  for  one  would  be  the  last 
to  cast  a  shadow  upon  man's  dreams  or  pride,  but  when  one 
investigates  even  the  little  we  are  permitted  to  know — the  dark- 
ness, the  inexplicable  confusion,  the  non-reason  in  all  the 
things  we  think,  believe,  hope  for — it  would,  at  the  least,  sug- 
gest that  seons  must  elapse  and  man  himself  change  radically 
and  develop  powers  (which,  if  they  are  his  at  all  at  present, 
are  in  embryo)  before  he  could  begin  to  conceive  of  the  sig- 
nificance of  even  the  smallest  of  the  forces  which  he  seems  to 
use  but  which  in  reality  use  him. 

All  the  great  things,  the  creative  impulses  and  substances 
such  as  produce  even  the  most  minute  forms  of  life  which  at 
present  we  can  see,  are  entirely  outside  the  range  of  his  lim- 
ited group  of  senses.  He  does  not  know,  for  instance,  where 
heat  or  cold  begin  or  end;  what  shades  lie  beyond  the  outer 
edges  of  the  spectrum;  what  are  the  limits  or  the  immediate 
beyond  of  sound,  light,  weight,  space,  etc.  His  weak  senses 
plus  his  devised  instrumental  aids  offer  him  no  real  help. 
They  merely  multiply  his  difficulties.  Something  has  invented 
an  eye,  an  ear,  an  olfactory  nerve,  the  ganglia  of  the  finger- 
tips, the  central  cerebral  cortex  and  so-called  reason,  all  of 
which  appear  to  be  nothing  more  than  assembled  and  synchron- 
ized reactions  to  other  and  unknown  stimuli,  wherewith  it  is 
possible  now  for  man  to  apprehend  only  minute  portions  of 
the  immense  energies  and  substances  blowing  about  him.  Yet 
with  all  these  aids  and  the  evidences  of  the  mechanism  of 
the  universe  outside  him  which  they  yield,  still  man,  attacking 
special  bits  and  portions,  finds  it  quite  impossible  to  suggest  the 
reason  for  anything.  He  lacks  the  equipment  and  power, 


A  COUNSEL  TO  PERFECTION  119 

which  even  the  thing  which  made  him  may  not  have,  of 
creating  such  finer  perceptive  organs  as  might  aid  him.  At 
present  and  at  best  apparently  he  is  allowed  only  to  invent 
some  things — such,  for  instance,  as  are  or  may  be  useful  to  the 
propagation  and  rearing  of  man  in  the  matter  of  numbers,  not 
brains.  His  Creator  apparently  is  either  unable  or  unwilling  to 
endow  him  with  such  equipment  as  might  make  for  great 
knowledge.  Tremendous  psychic  opportunities  appear  and  go 
by,  as  when  a  duller  and  more  ignorant  Rome  conquers  a  sen- 
sitive and  highly  perceptive  and  meditative  Greece.  Owing  to 
his  minor  equipment,  ignorance  and  vain  beliefs  flourish,  and 
he  stumbles  from  one  vain  illusion  and  delusion  to  another — 
to  achieve  what?  Something,  possibly,  which  his  Creator  can 
use.  Or  so  it  would  seem. 

But  it  is  not  this  phase  alone  which  is  troublesome.  One 
might  and  does  get  along  well  enough  knowing  but  a  minute 
portion  of  that  which,  it  would  seem,  our  immediate  Creator 
must  plainly  know  concerning  the  processes  by  which  we 
arrive,  depart  and  function  during  our  little  stay  here,  but  to  a 
seeking  intelligence  there  is  inescapable  tragedy  in  the  plain 
implication,  written  large  over  everything,  that  to  the  acci- 
dental Creator  of  man  the  largest  intelligence  of  whatsoever 
bent  or  character  among  him  is  of  no  more  importance  to 
the  ruling  force  than  the  veriest  gnat  or  leaf.  It,  whatever  it 
is  that  makes  man  and  the  animal,  manufactures  intelligences  as 
though  they  were  buttons  or  pins,  and  though  it  create  from 
time  to  time  an  Anaximander,  a  Plato,  an  Alexander,  a 
Socrates,  a  Keppler,  a  Newton,  a  Leonardo  or  any  other  titanic 
brain,  yet  to  it  the  least  ditch-digger  or  wastrel  is  as  impor- 
tant. The  mass  is  everything,  the  individual  nothing.  With 
the  greatest  nonchalance  or  blundering  inconsequence  it  strikes 
down  a  Hertz,  a  Raphael,  a  Curie,  a  Spinoza,  a  Schubert,  a 
Keats.  Seventy  years  is  the  allotted  span  for  all,  great  or 
small,  an  average  amount  of  strength,  the  same  stomach  andt 


120  A  COUNSEL  TO  PERFECTION 

blood  capacity.  Though  an  individual  had  seemingly  the  • 
most  important  ideas  under  consideration,  great  schemes  where- 
with to  benefit  or  further  the  so-called  progress  of  man  (the 
especial  care,  as  we  learn,  of  his  Maker),  still  this  is  of  no 
least  importance  to  his  Creator.  It  is  invariably  on,  on,  out 
of  the  way,  as  though  the  Creator  had  most  carefully  arranged 
not  to  take  advice  from  any  one  He  made,  or  as  though  a  blind 
process  were  at  work  which  could  not.  If  the  former,  one  ; 
might  say  small  blame  to  one  so  powerful.  Presuming  Him 
even  moderately  intelligent,  how  unimportant  His  little  manni- 
kins  must  be  to  the  ultimate  scheme  of  things,  the  giant 
forces  through  which  He  manifests  Himself  and  which  grind, 
helplessly  create,  helplessly  control!  Imagine  taking  advice 
from  a  loaf  of  bread  you  had  accidentally  evolved,  or  listen- 
ing to  the  protests  or  advice  of  a  ginger-snap  of  your  own 
creating! 

Nevertheless  if  it  were  possible  in  the  face  of  the  driving 
forces  which  seem  wholly  to  manipulate  him  to  reach  man  and 
by  a  suggestion  aid  him,  it  would  be  that  in  the  face  of  so 
much  confusion  he  no  longer  wastes  time  on  theories  wholly 
unrelated  to  himself  or  his  own  material  welfare,  his  essential 
necessities  here,  but  rather  that  he  see  to  it  first  of  all,  and 
clearly,  that  his  life  here  is  something  which  is  to  be  lived  here 
and  now  to  the  utmost,  in  the  best  form  for  all — during  seventy 
years,  if  not  longer — here,  and  not  elsewhere,  and  that  some 
reasonable  and  concentrated  effort  be  made  to  make  it  livable 
for  man  here  and  now  instead  of  elsewhere,  however  glittering 
or  picturesque  that  elsewhere  may  be,  thin  romance  that  it  is. 
For  is  it  not  high  time  that  we  all  realized  how  essential  it  is 
to  make  life  worth  while  for  all  here,  knowing  as  we  now  do 
that  man  is  not  a  pet  in  Nature  and  that  if  he  makes 
anything  of  himself  and  his  social  as  well  as  his  mental  state 
here  it  must  be  with  the  full  understanding  that  he  can  expect 
but  little  if  any  aid  from  Nature  or  the  forces  directing  him, 


A  COUNSEL  TO  PERFECTION  121 

certainly  none  that  would  tend  to  ultimately  enlarge  his  own 
mental  clarity  and  supremacy.  To  this  end  therefore  it  would 
seem  advisable  that  man  as  a  whole  throw  over  as  swiftly  as 
possible  all  his  old-time  religious  and  moral  conceptions,  his 
restraining  conventions,  taboos  and  the  like,  and  re-examine 
for  himself  the  data  concerning  which,  accidentally  or  other- 
wise, he  now  finds  himself  capable  of  cerebrating  and  according 
to  which  he  is  now  supposed  to  regulate  his  life.  It  may  not 
be  true  that  he  should  limit  himself  as  his  present  theories  and 
ethics  suggest.  And  furthermore,  his  greatest  problem  being 
that  of  living  longer,  of  being  stronger,  happier,  not  so  much 
the  butt  and  jest  of  chance  or  the  willful  or  indifferent  moods  of 
the  surrounding  and  stronger  forces  in  Nature,  that  he  devote 
himself  entirely  to  solving  those  problems. 

Elsewhere  I  have  indicated  a  possibly  broader  moral  con- 
ception which  may  be  of  value  to  this  end.  One  of  the 
greatest  achievements,  of  course,  would  be  to  rid  the  human 
mind  of  all  vain  illusion  concerning  things  spiritual,  to  get  it  to 
see,  if  it  were  possible,  that  man  is  not  necessarily  an  endur- 
ing spiritual  creature  endowed — for  who  can  know? — with 
an  enduring  and  progressive  soul,  but  rather  that  he  is  an 
implement  or  tool  in  the  hands  of  something  else  which  is 
creating  or  using  him  as,  for  example,  the  vine  does  the  leaf, 
yet  which  itself  may  be  of  no  great  import  in  Nature. 

If,  by  any  process  of  investigation,  and  as  now  seems  pos- 
sible, it  could  be  proved  that  man's  Creator  is  no  universal 
lord  by  any  means  but  a  blind  fumbling  force,  it  should  be 
possible  for  man  to  do  one  of  two  things:  either  ally  himself 
strictly  with  such  impulses  and  instincts  as  he  can  detect  as 
coming  from  this  lesser  and  plainly  more  immediate  Creator 
— many  of  them  plainly  non-moral  enough,  as  we  may  see  by 
like  impulses  in  him,  and  so  aid  this  Creator  to  discover 
Himself;  or,  now  that  he  has  a  foothold  here  and  appears 
to  be  a  fairly  self-perpetuating  machine,  to  endeavor  to  reveal 


122  A  COUNSEL  TO  PERFECTION 

to  himself  and  for  himself  the  secret  of  self-creation  and  per- 
petuation and  so  become  the  equal  of  the  force  or  forces  now 
using  him.  But  to  that  end  he  would  need  to  rid  himself  of 
the  delusion  that  anything  in  life  should  be  accepted  in  blind 
faith  and  without  question  as  permanent.  One  of  the  oldest 
of  the  Hebraic  sayings  is  "My  son,  get  wisdom,  get  under- 
standing," and  a  later  saw  declares  "Knowledge  is  power," 
and  so  it  is.  Adam,  in  the  fable  of  the  genesis  of  man,  was 
condemned  not  so  much  for  eating  of  the  Fruit  of  the  Tree 
of  Knowledge  as  for  the  fact  that  "in  the  day  ye  eat  thereof 
your  eyes  shall  be  opened  and  ye  shall  be  as  gods,  knowing 
good  and  evil."  And  Prometheus  (forethought),  the  other 
"God"  who  is  supposed  to  have  created  man  out  of  earth  and 
water  and  who  for  man's  benefit  "stole  fire  from  heaven  in  a 
hollow  tube"  and  taught  him  all  the  useful  arts,  was  punished 
for  this  by  Zeus,  the  supreme  "God,"  by  being  chained  to  a 
rock  and  having  his  liver  daily  torn  by  an  eagle — certainly  a 
most  significant  fable,  for  he  was  trying  to  make  something 
of  man,  or  rather  teaching  man  to  help  himself,  and  this  the 
Supreme  Ruler  of  the  Universe  did  not  want,  probably  for  the 
same  reason  that  the  Hebraic  "God"  wanted  Adam  to  remain 
a  dull  machine  or  clod. 

But  the  Greek  fable  is  far  more  hopeful  and  significant  than 
is  the  Hebraic  one,  for,  in  the  former,  strength  (Hercules) 
subsequently  slew  the  eagle  and  released  Prometheus,  or  fore- 
thought, thus  allowing  him  to  aid  man;  while  in  Genesis  man 
is  condemned,  slave-like  and  forever  after,  to  "eat  his  bread 
in  the  sweat  of  his  face,"  a  very  sharp  commentary  on  the 
nature  of  his  Maker  as  the  ancients  conceived  him.  What  is 
implied  by  both  fables  is  that  man  is  a  waif  or  accident  in 
Nature,  not  intentionally  endowed  with  wisdom  or  the  power 
to  get  it,  and  that  Nature  (Zeus,  Jehovah,  anything  you  will) 
markedly  objects  to  his  obtaining  any  "lest  he  become  as  one 


A  COUNSEL  TO  PERFECTION  123 

of  us"  and  "put  forth  his  hand  and  take  also  of  the  Tree 
of  Life  and  eat  and  live  forever." 

In  view  of  this  one  might  ask,  Is  life  worth  living?  Is 
there  any  use?  Perhaps  there  would  be  if  man,  accidentally 
evoluted  or  not,  but  coming  at  last,  by  accident  or  not,  to  the 
place  where  he  finds  himself  able  to  reason  upon  the  processes 
which  have  brought  him  thus  far,  could  seize  upon  the  con- 
structive processes  and  so  begin  a  creative,  constructive  career 
of  his  own  which  would  redound  to  his  own  benefit  and  com- 
fort and  none  other.  Only  there  is  no  least  evidence  as  to  that 
yet,  i.  e.,  that  it  is  possible.  In  so  far  as  one  may  judge 
by  chemistry  and  physics  man  appears  to  be  in  the  grip  of  a 
blind  force  or  process  which  cannot  help  itself  and  from  which 
man  can  derive  no  power  to  help  himself  save  by  accident  or 
peradventure.  Even  now,  for  all  one  can  know,  he  may  be 
sinking  into  a  blind,  unreasoning  mush  instead  of  evoluting  fur- 
ther, so  many  are  the  theories  which  counsel  him  to  believe  in 
some  vague,  aimless  peace  hereafter  and  which  he  so  readily 
accepts.  The  important  thing  for  him  to  do,  supposing  that 
he  could,  would  be  to  avoid  henceforth  all  destroying  notions  of 
this  character  and  to  think  of  himself  rather  as  a  waif,  an 
unloved  orphan  in  space,  who  must  nevertheless  and  by  his 
own  effort  make  his  own  pathetic  way  in  the  world.  Or,  if 
that  is  too  harsh,  then  to  think  of  himself  as  part  and  parcel 
(leaf  and  vine)  of  some  hard-pressed  Creator,  a  sun,  a  group 
of  chemic  forces  synthetized  into  an  individual  somewhat  like 
himself,  not  a  Supreme  God,  by  any  means,  but  a  kind  of  local 
manufacturer  or  well-meaning  Prometheus  who  is  trying  to 
make  something  out  of  man  and  Himself  at  the  same  time,  be- 
ing in  or  of  man,  or  man  in  Him  ("I  am  in  the  Father;  the 
Father  is  in  me"),  but  who  in  turn  and  so  through  him,  man, 
is  being  assailed  by  larger  or  rival  forces  and  cannot  always 
make  His  way  as  well  as  He  might  wish.  Hence,  He  needs  the 
consideration  and  even  help  of  man,  the  atomic  force  of  which 


124  A  COUNSEL  TO  PERFECTION 

He  is  composed.    That  being  the  case,  the  burden  of  life  might 
possibly  come  to  seem  less  hard. 

But,  aside  from  such  an  hypothesis,  thought  offers  but 
small  comfort  to  the  thinker  viewing  the  drift  of  fact  as  one 
must.  For  see  how  painfully  and  often  most  sadly  our  scien- 
tists and  philosophers  dig  at  this  riddle  of  existence  and  how 
slowly,  if  at  all,  we  are  really  fitting  ourselves  for  the  giant  task, 
these  greater  and  greater  contests  with  Nature,  which  must 
come  if  man  is  to  come  to  anything.  Even  individual  self-pres- 
ervation via  chemistry,  physics,  mathematics,  economics,  sociol- 
ogy, philosophy,  astronomy,  botany,  biology,  and  what  not,  is  a 
slow  and  difficult  process.  On  every  hand  are  destructive  forces 
that  beset  us,  and  we  have  apparently  only  ourselves  to  look 
to  that  we  be  not  so  persistently  tortured.  All  religions  and 
theories  of  Divine  aid  to  the  contrary,  man  has  been  and  is  now 
compelled  to  battle  hourly  and  momentarily  for  his  "right" 
(how  pale  is  that  word!)  to  live  and  grow,  let  alone  think — 
against  heat,  cold,  destructive  rivals  and  enemies  of  all  kinds, 
destructive  insects,  savage  animals,  savage  men,  droughts, 
storms,  dissensions,  diseases,  death — whereas  he  in  turn  has 
sought  and  does  now  seek  to  help  himself  via  farmers,  butchers, 
inventors,  scientists,  doctors,  seeking  to  wrest  from  forces  ap- 
parently alien  to  the  one  which  prospers  him,  if  there  is  such  an 
one,  some  of  the  powers  which  apparently  they  hold  in  such  vast 
abundance  and  which  might  even  contain  the  secret  of  eternal 
life.  Who  knows?  Indeed,  surveying  what  has  befallen  him 
throughout  the  ages,  I  should  suggest  to  man  that  he  accept 
as  true  the  fabled  statement  made  by  "God"  in  Genesis  iii. 
14:19,  and  seek  persistently  and  without  too  much  reverence 
for  some  method  of  solving  his  own  difficulties.  He  should  re- 
ject vain  theory,  especially  that  which  relates  to  a  mythical 
reward  hereafter,  and  cling  only  to  those  methods  and  forms 
of  procedure  which  give  promise  or  hope  of  a  larger  reward 
here,  tending  to  strengthen  his  capacity  for  living  here  and 


A  COUNSEL  TO  PERFECTION  125 

now.  Such  a  theory  or  belief,  however  antagonistic  to  current 
religious  theories,  would  at  least  tend  to  make  man  less  de- 
pressed and  indifferent  to  his  state  here  and  more  conscious 
of  the  fact  that  if  he  is  to  extract  any  joy  out  of  his  span 
he  must  think  and  plan  to  make  things  better  not  only  for 
himself  but  for  others,  since  joy  for  himself  depends  upon  his 
joy  in  others  and  they  in  him.  Indeed,  it  would  give  him  more 
zest  for  the  game  here  if  he  did.  By  that  last  I  am  not 
arguing  with  the  moralists  for  all  their  shabby,  little  pinch- 
beck repressions,  the  idea  that  the  less  you  do  and  know  the 
better  you  are;  but  rather  that  the  more  you  do  and  know 
the  better  off  you  are,  physically  and  mentally,  and  the  more 
you  make  your  state  or  form  of  government  do  and  let  you 
know  the  better. 

How  soon  would  not  such  an  attitude — not  on  the  part  of 
all,  for  one  cannot  hope  for  that,  but  of  even  a  moderate  minor- 
ity— make  for  a  more  vivid,  aggressive,  fascinating  world! 
How  soon  might  not  the  now  seemingly  sealed  doors  open, 
unsolvable  (so-called)  riddles  end  as  solved,  man  acquire  new 
reasoning  faculties,  senses  and  powers,  and  finally  stand  forth 
a  creative  force  himself,  a  genuine  creator  on  his  own  account, 
able  not  only  to  fend  and  forefend  against  many  of  his 
present  disasters  here  but  to  give  new  powers  and  thought, 
and  even  creative  force,  to  things  which  now  crawl  meekly 
at  the  feet  of  man?  Who  knows?  Is  not  courage  better 
than  fear?  a  healthy,  if  skeptical,  seeking  better  than  blind, 
dull  acceptance  of  anything  or  nothing,  as  the  case  may  be? 
I,  for  one,  think  so,  and,  for  my  part,  would  prefer  to  be  a 
seeking  Prometheus  chained  to  a  rock  and  my  liver  gnawed 
daily  by  the  eagle  of  an  irritated  and  jealous  higher  power 
than  a  crawling  worm  or  whimpering  slave  praying  for  some 
endless  Nirvana,  or  a  minute  part  in  an  endless  legion  of 
cherubim  harping  the  glory  of  something  which  had  plainly 
sought  neither  my  peace  nor  my  signficance  but  only  my  pain- 
ful, unimportant  and  even  worthless  service. 


NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE 

I  SOMETIMES  think  that  a  calm  and  exhaustive  study  of 
the  American  temperament  in  relation  to  sex  and  its  vari- 
ous manifestations  would  result  in  the  scientific  conclusion  that 
this  country,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  as  much  a  victim  of  a  deep- 
seated  neurosis  relating  to  this  impulse  as  any,  the  most  mor- 
bid of  those  who  appeal  to  psycho-analysis  for  treatment. 
The  profound  and  even  convulsive  interest  in  any  case  in- 
volving a  sex  crime  or  delusion  (Thaw,  Leo  Frank,  Billy  Brown, 
Carlisle  Harris,  Nan  Patterson,  Durant;  or  any  negro  rape  case 
in  the  South) ;  the  ridiculous  and  quite  neurotic  interest  dis- 
played by  grown  men  and  women,  to  say  nothing  of  children, 
in  the  exploits  of  so-called  "cuties" — the  "Spring  Blossoms," 
"June  Elfs,"  "Violet  Dawns"  of  the  movies— the  perennial 
and  astonishingly  profitable  (in  so  far  as  a  certain  class  of 
theatrical  management  is  concerned)  interest  of  the  male  and 
even  female  American  in  the  utterly  mechanical  and  standard- 
ized beauty  chorus  shows  with  their  (presumably)  seventeen- 
year-old  maids  in  bathing,  bedroom-bath  and  other  forms  of 
abbreviated  attire!  Are  not  these  points  in  evidence?  In  the 
matter  of  the  latter,  no  story  is  necessary;  just  erotic  color, 
music,  dancing  evolutions  and  double-meant  (I  almost  said 
"mint")  jokes,  and  the  thing  is  done. 

Again,  look  at  any  American  city  where  morality  or  reli- 
gion, or  both,  presumably  have  full  sway  (and  in  what  Ameri- 
can city  are  they  not  supposed  to  be  dominant?),  and  what  do 
you  find?  The  most  desirable  locations  in  the  best  portions  of 
the  city,  outside  of  the  trade  centers,  given  over  to  the  lead- 
ing churches  and  the  newspapers,  which  preach  a  lofty 

126 


NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE       127 

code  of  ethics  and  morals  which  they  themselves  find 
difficult  if  not  impossible  to  practice;  while  elsewhere  the 
local  bookstores  and  picture  shops  and  bill-boards  are 
crowded  with  a  class  of  literature  and  illustration,  or 
so-called  "art,"  which  to  read  or  view,  according  to  the  ad- 
jacent churches  and  newspapers,  would  result  in  the  loss  of 
your  immortal  soul  as  well  as  your  local  standing.  And  yet 
these  same  are  displayed,  sold  and  read  plentifully  and 
with  avidity,  for  the  very  good  reason,  no  doubt,  that  they 
satisfy  a  craving  and  a  thirst  not  otherwise  open  to  satiation. 
In  any  town  of  any  size,  what  pictures  are  not  displayed  and 
sold:  "September  Morn,"  "Youth,"  "Purity,"  "Innocence," 
"Yes,"  "Waiting,"  and  the  like,  disguised  as  little  as  the  law 
will  permit.  Again,  where  will  you  not  find  a  swarm  of  sex 
magazines  labeled  "breezy,"  "snappy"  and  the  like,  the  kind 
that  any  sex-suppressed  neurotic  might  well  crave,  and  all  re- 
ceived with  the  profoundest  gratitude  and  widest  distribution? 
Where  in  America,  any  more  than  abroad  (barring  countries  of 
Asia,  Africa  and  the  South  Pacific,  where  sex-suppression  is 
not  the  order  of  the  day)  does  one  lack  for  pornographic  nudes 
or  privately  circulated  writings  of  the  most  lurid  character? 
Are  the  art  or  book  or  drug  stores  of  the  small  towns  free  of 
them?  Is  it  not  true  that  you  can  still  buy  almost  everywhere, 
"Three  Weeks,"  "Life's  Shop  Window,"  "The  Yoke,"  and  other 
such  classics,  whereas  those  admirable  volumes  of  life  and 
satire  "The  Decameron,"  "Droll  Stories,"  "The  Confessions," 
Cellini,  are  only  to  be  discovered,  and  that  by  chance  and  per- 
adventure  and  "against  the  law,"  on  the  dark  and  musty 
shelves  of  some  out-of-the-way  old  book  store,  and  these  con- 
sumed by  the  intelligensia  and  the  sex-satisfied  only,  and  with 
an  upward  mouth-curl  of  amusement  at  the  innate  humors  of 
passion?  The  hobble-skirt,  the  tango  dance,  the  Hula-Hula  or 
Hawaiian  melodies — what  did  each  in  its  day  indicate?  Plays 


128       NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE 

like  "Everywoman,"  "Experience,"  "The  Girl  from  Rector's," 
"Parlor,  Bedroom  and  Bath" — what  did  they  suggest? 

Not  so  very  long  since,  I  stopped  for  a  little  while  in  a 
town  of  a  hundred  thousand  population  in  the  South.  It  was 
moral,  religious,  conventional — in  other  words,  American.  It 
might  as  well,  however,  have  been  in  New  England,  the  North- 
west, the  Southwest,  the  Middle  West,  for  any  difference  to  be 
discovered  in  its  moral  texture.  In  this  home  of  chivalry,  cour- 
tesy, purity  and  the  like,  erected  originally  on  the  backs  of 
driven  slaves,  a  number  of  its  most  interesting  points  of  van- 
tage were  as  usual  occupied  by  the  churches,  as  impressive 
and  prosperous  as  those  anywhere.  It  had  only  one  theater  of 
consequence,  and  that  open  only  two  nights  a  week,  if  so 
often.  Its  poorer  classes  were  entertained  by  three  or  four 
moving-picture  establishments  ("Passed  by  the  National  Board 
of  Censors") ;  but  the  well-to-do  also  attended  these,  for  they 
had  no  other  place  to  go  for  amusement.  Yet,  in  the  face  of 
the  highly  censored  "movies,"  theater  and  bookstores  and  the 
absence  of  houses  of  ill-repute  (all  suppressed),  there  were  two 
or  three  "first-class"  hotels,  all  with  their  Thes  Dansantes, 
cabaret  suppers  and  the  like,  of  the  character  of  which  I  pro- 
pose to  speak  later.  The  most  exclusive  bookstore  was  so 
very  moral  that  it  would  not  carry  any  books  not  approved  by 
the  "Watch  and  Ward"  and  "Library  Protection"  association, 
nor  would  the  vine-covered  library  in  the  best  section,  although 
at  any  time  you  might  have  gone  to  the  principal  dry-goods 
store  and  by  a  roundabout  process  secured  nearly  all  that  you 
desired. 

While  I  was  in  this  city  a  twelve-year-old  boy  was  arrested 
at  one  of  the  railroad  stations  about  two  hundred  yards  from 
the  principal  beach  for  appearing  in  a  two-piece  bathing  suit. 
It  was  not  asserted  in  the  prosecution  which  followed  (which 
was  vigorously  defended  by  his  father)  that  a  twelve-year-old 
boy  in  a  two-piece  bathing  suit  was  immoral,  but  a  man  in  a 


NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE       129 

one-piece  one  or  a  girl  in  any  kind  at  all  would  be,  and 
to  avoid  the  possible  vitiation  of  public  purity  which  might 
thus  follow  the  boy  was  arrested.  He  was  discharged  with  a 
warning — but  even  so.  You  can  see  how  high  the  virtue  at 
this  city  should  be. 

Yet,  at  the  same  time,  in  this  same  city,  were  the  three  afore- 
mentioned hotels  with  their  Thes  Dansantes,  roof  gardens, 
cabaret  grills,  this,  that  and  the  other,  and  in  these  might  have 
been  seen,  any  late  afternoon  or  evening,  winter  and  summer, 
such  a  collection  of  sex-struck  infants  and  elders  as  would  be 
worth  the  same  price  of  admission  anywhere.  The  clothes! 
The  wondrous  shoes  and  gaudy  purses,  the  subdued  and  yet 
moving  and  suggestive  combination  of  colors!  The  efforts  to 
flagellate  the  already  too  harried  imagination  with  a  promise 
of  delights  which  the  local  morality  squad,  I  fear,  would  never 
permit  to  be  realized.  You  could  pay  as  much  in  either  of  these 
places  for  a  pot  of  tea  and  three  little  thin  slices  of  toast  as  you 
could  anywhere  in  the  world.  In  their  efforts  to  provide  you 
with  a  superior  (sex)  atmosphere  they  made  it  possible  for  you 
so  to  do. 

Wrong?  Not  a  bit.  I  am  not  describing  it  for  that  purpose; 
nor  am  I  quarreling  with  human  nature  for  expressing  its 
inmost  desires,  being  what  it  is:  avid,  alluring,  secret,  hungry. 
I  am  smiling  at  the  anachronistic  spirit  of  the  same  community 
which  would  arrest  the  boy  in  the  bathing  suit,  prohibit  "near 
beer,"  snip  every  even  weakly  suggestive  passage  out  of  a 
"movie,"  "run"  any  indecent  play  ("Hedda  Gabler,"  let  us 
say,  or  "The  Wild  Duck,"  since  it  could  not  understand  them) 
out  of  town.  No  copies  of  "The  Song  of  Songs,"  Rousseau's 
"Confessions,"  "The  Decameron,"  or  the  unexpurgated 
"Arabian  Nights."  Never,  never,  never!  Yet  look  at  these 
same  hotels,  these  girls  and  youths  clinging  to  each  other  in 
the  suggestive  dances!  The  movements,  the  sinuous,  almost 
savage,  abandon,  the  love-looks,  the  whispers!  And  the  auto- 


130       NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE 

mobiles  lined  up  along  distant  country  roadsides  in  the  dark 
later — although  not  a  single  house  of  assignation  or  prostitu- 
tion was  tolerated  within  the  city  limits.  One  had  to  secure^ 
a  Ford  and  employ  the  open  woods  and  fields  instead.  And  in 
the  basement  next  to  the  barbershop  in  each  hotel  was  one  or 
more  "manicure  booths,"  curtained  confessionals  or  reces- 
sionals,  into  which  one  might  retire  with  a  manicure  maid  to 
have  one's  fingers  done.  Owing  to  the  dashing  quality  of  these 
maids  the  business  was  large. 

For  myself,  I  do  not  know  what  the  psychic  or  spiritual  or 
creative  significance  of  these  impulses  of  the  sexes  may  be, 
unless,  in  truth,  within  equational  limits  they  are  moral  or  at 
least  essential,  and  so  to  be  cherished  as  a  good  instead  of  an 
evil;  but  one  thing  is  certain:  their  appearance  in  this  florid 
public  form  and  in  the  center  of  a  vice-cured  city  would  indi- 
cate that  either  the  attitude  of  the  nation  is  wrong  or  that  we 
have  in  our  midst  a  host  of  neurotic  or  sex-struck  degenerates 
who  ought  to  be  eliminated  from  the  body  civic  in  a  very  radi- 
cal manner.  But  are  they  neurotic?  Or  is  it  the  nation  that 
is  wrong,  and  these  but  the  neurotic  symptoms  of  its  error? 
Certainly,  nowhere  outside  of  America  and  especially  in  such  a 
vice-taboo  realm  as  this,  I  fancy,  are  the  terrors  of  sex  excess, 
the  degradation  and  disease  following  sex  libertinage,  more  en- 
thusiastically or  more  glowingly  pointed  out  as  the  psychic  or 
spiritual  aftermath  or  heavenly  punishment  of  these  "sins"; 
and,  yet,  for  all  the  length  of  time  these  horrors  have  been 
"known"  or  insisted  upon  or  pointed  out,  and  regardless  of 
whether  they  are  really  true  or  not,  is  there  any  marked  diminu- 
tion of  the  so-called  sex  evil  in  America?  Has  the  denying  of 
drink  or  prophylactics  to  the  American  sailor  or  soldier  cured 
him  of  his  interest  in  sex?  Will  it?  The  world  apparently,  or 
that  part  of  it  expressed  by,  in  or  through  the  sexes,  is  as  avid 
and  seeking  as  ever.  We  know,  or  some  of  us  do,  that  the  chem- 
istry by  which  we  and  the  sex  impulse  are  compounded  is  above 


NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE       131 

the  knowledge  or  volition  of  man,  although  its  object  in  so  far 
as  human  moods  and  passions  are  concerned,  is  plain  enough. 
But  in  America  we  are  not  willing,  if  we  do  know,  to  admit  it. 
Our  increasing  numerical  presence  here  should  be  evidence 
enough  of  its  force,  but  we  waive  that  in  favor  of  our  theories 
in  regard  to  the  inherently  moral  and  Christian  home — even 
the  complete  suppression  of  sex!  That  a  balance  or  equation 
between  excess  and  license  and  inane,  mollusc-like  passiv- 
ism  in  regard  to  sex  and  its  expression  is  all  that  is  ever  struck 
in  Nature,  is  plain  enough  to  those  who  think;  but  that  an 
American  in  authority  in  state  or  church  should  admit  it!  Life, 
apparently,  is  never  exact  in  anything,  and  the  desirability  of 

having  it  so  is  of  course  open  to  question.    But  still 

Yet,  to  me,  the  impulses  we  are  trying  to  suppress  are,  this 
side  of  excess,  perfectly  normal,  while  the  thing  we  think  we 
want  is  an  infantile  conception  of  life  and  its  processes,  un- 
suited  to  thinking  men  and  women.  Our  conviction  is  ap- 
parently that  sexuality  is  essentially  wrong  and  debasing,  and 
yet  we  do  not  really  think  so,  as  our  intense  national  interest 
in  every  phase  of  sex  proves.  We  are  afraid  to  face  ourselves 
honestly  and  openly  in  anything,  neurotically  so,  and  that  is 
what  makes  the  American  intellect  so  utterly  contemptible  and 
negligible  at  times.  What  is  nearer  the  truth  is  that  our  atti- 
tude is  to  be  psychoanalytically  traced  in  various  ways  to  the 
strangely  exaggerated  (neurotic,  I  think)  conceptions  of  the 
part  sex  or  its  over-emphasis  plays  in  life  due  to  repression, 
which  have  followed  upon  impossible  religious  theories  brought 
from  abroad  (Quaker,  Methodist,  Puritan,  Mennonite,  Catho- 
lic), and  our  reaction  to  them.  These  have  developed  that  re- 
pressive social  and  biologic  ignorance  regarding  sex  charac- 
teristic of  so  many  American  families,  offspring  of  these  sects 
even  when  they  are  no  longer  of  them.  The  conviction  that  sex 
is  debasing,  dominant  at  least  at  this  time  in  nearly  every 
American  mind,  I  believe,  is  to  be  traced  so  often  to  these 


NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE 

earlier  experiences,  particularly  with  regard  to  parents  and  their 
views.  The  average  American  child — and  I  suppose  England 
is  not  much  better,  judging  by  their  novels  and  morals — is  per- 
mitted to  base  its  ideals  of  life  and  social  relations,  especially 
sex  relations,  on  this  earlier  pretense  on  the  part  of  parents 
that  sex  does  not  exist — for  them  at  least. 

So  it  is  that  we  find  adult  boys  and  girls  pretending,  even  to 
themselves,  that  they  do  not  know  what  sex  is  and  the  manner 
in  which  children  come  into  existence,  and  preachers  and  pre- 
tending thinkers  speaking  and  writing  as  though  sex  were  not 
an  all  but  dominant  force  in  life.  And  instead  of  viewing  this 
inconceivably  dull  attitude  as  something  that  needs  modifica- 
tion and  bringing  ourselves  to  the  realization  that  there  is 
nothing  inherently  disgraceful  about  having  sexual  desire,  or 
at  least  knowledge  of  it,  and  of  eventually  gratifying  it,  we 
allow  ourselves  to  be  kept  in  tow  of  crack-brained  religionists 
and  ethic  mongers  who  insist  on  painting  our  very  normal 
natures  as  abnormal  and  so  developing  national  neuroses  and 
psychoses  which  make  us  ridiculous,  not  only  to  ourselves  but 
to  every  other  nation.  It  has  even  succeeded  in  twisting  our 
judgments  in  regard  to  politics  and  economics.  For  without  a 
rational  conception  of  the  part,  and  the  very  normal  part,  sex 
plays  in  life,  how  can  there  be  sanity  in  these  other  things? 
One  cannot  be  wrong  as  to  one  vital  point  in  life  and  right  as 
to  all  others.  We  continue  to  assert,  as  a  nation  and  as  indi- 
viduals, that  everything  sexual  is  wrong,  while  at  the  same  time 
having  sexual  feelings  and  impulses  which  we  can  scarcely  dis- 
guise even  to  ourselves  and  which  we  satisfy  or  over-compensate 
for  in  ways  too  ridiculous  to  mention  (a  Billy  Sunday  revival, 
for  instance;  a  White  Slave  Crusade  in  which  our  papers  blaze 
with  sickening  criticism;  an  insane,  an  impossible  pursuit  of 
money  or  vice,  due  to  the  repression  of  every  other  normal 
instinct).  Truly,  a  goose  nailed  to  the  floor  by  its  feet  and 
stuffed  daily  to  produce  an  enlarged  and  salable  liver,  could 


NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE       133 

be  no  more  ridiculous  or  pathetic  than  the  average  American 
debarred  from  every  avenue  of  intelligence  or  effort  save  that 
which  relates  to  money. 

It  is  a  bit  curl,  .is,  one  cannot  help  remarking,  that  the 
widespread  fame  and  weight  of  such  sincere  and  eminent  in- 
vestigators as  Kraft-Ebbing,  Ellis,  Freud  and  his  host  of  fol- 
lowers, with  all  the  profoundly  moving  evidence  of  the  pathos 
of  sex-repression  which  they  offer,  has  not  had  more  influence 
upon  our  national,  if  not  the  world's  international,  mind.  The 
sorrows  revealed!  The  grisly  prison  doors  unlocked  by  the 
patient  and  brilliantly  revealing  researches  of  Freud  alone! 
The  old  sorrows  dragged  from  the  depths  of  the  repressed 
subconscious  and  at  last  permitted  to  come  forth  into  the  light, 
where  the  fortuitous  and  yet  crushing  weight  of  earthly  illusion 
and  error  may  be  noted!  And  yet  they  have  not  apparently 
as  yet  enlightened  or  broadened  us. 

At  this  point  I  would  like  to  present  a  citation  from  the 
writings  of  one  of  our  leading  neurologists  and  psychoanalysts 
(H.  W.  Frink)  in  regard  to  the  type  of  patient  (neurotic) 
pouring  in  upon  him  from  all  parts  of  America.  "My  own 
experience,"  he  writes  ("Morbid  Fears  and  Compulsions," 
page  224),  "is  that  the  sexual  factor  comes  to  expression  in 
every  analysis  at  once,  usually  within  the  first  two  or  three 
visits,  and  I  am  sure  that  for  this  result  no  special  technique 
or  dexterities  are  required;  about  all  that  is  necessary  being  to 
let  the  patient  talk.  To  the  question,  Why  is  the  sexual  factor 
dominant  in  every  neurosis?  I  shall  not  attempt  to  make  any 
detailed  reply.  The  answer  is  perhaps  to  be  sought  in  the 
direction  indicated  by  Meyer  ("Discussion  of  Some  Funda- 
mental Issues  in  Freud's  Psychoanalysis,"  State  Hospital  Bul- 
letin, Vol.  II,  No.  4,  1910),  when  he  says:  'No  experience  or 
part  of  our  life  is  as  much  disfigured  by  convention  as  the  sex 
feelings  and  ambitions.7  That  is  to  say,  if  we  had  other  im- 
pulses which  throughout  the  whole  life  of  the  individual  were 


134       NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE 

so  consistently  and  unremittingly  warped,  cramped  and  de- 
formed in  every  conceivable  and  unnatural  manner  (as  they 
are  in  America)  and  they  had  the  same  strength  to  rebel 
against  such  treatment  as  have  the  sex  impulses,  then  we 
might  have  neuroses  in  which  they  and  not  the  sex  factor 
played  the  dominant  role." 

For  my  own  part,  I  cannot  understand  why  it  is  that  the 
human  mind,  and  more  especially  the  American  or  Anglo- 
Saxon  mind,  unless  it  is  regulated  by  biogenetic  forces  over 
which  it  has  no  control  but  which  have  full  control  over  it, 
functions  so  dully  in  regard  to  sex  and  its  import.  One 
would  assume,  from  the  average  religious  or  social  conception 
of  the  time,  that  the  sole  function  of  sex  in  all  its  ramifica- 
tions is  the  production  of  more  children,  to  live,  work  and  die 
according  to  the  prescribed  routine  of  the  dullest  Christian 
formula.  But,  unquestionably,  sex  means  much  more  than 
that.  While  it  is  true  that  some  of  the  minor  professors  of 
psychoanalysis  are  offering  what  they  are  pleased  to  term 
the  "sublimation  of  the  holophilic  (or  sex)  impulse"  into 
more  "useful,"  or,  at  any  rate,  more  agreeable  fields  of  effort 
via  suppression  or  restraint,  this  in  my  judgment  is  little  more 
than  a  sop,  and  an  obvious  one,  to  the  moralists.  What  is 
actually  true  is  that  via  sex  gratification — or  perhaps  better, 
its  ardent  and  often  defeated  pursuit — comes  most  of  all  that 
is  most  distinguished  in  art,  letters  and  our  social  economy 
and  progress  generally.  It  may  be  and  usually  is  "displaced." 
"referred,"  "transferred,"  "substituted  by,"  "identified  with" 
desires  for  wealth,  preferment,  distinction  and  what  not,  but 
underneath  each  and  every  one  of  such  successes  must  prima- 
rily be  written  a  deep  and  abiding  craving  for  women,  or  some 
one  woman,  in  whom  the  sex  desires  of  any  one  person  for 
the  time  being  is  centered.  "Love"  or  "lust"  (and  the  one 
is  but  an  intellectual  sublimation  of  the  other)  moves  the 
seeker  in  every  field  of  effort.  It  is  the  desire  to  enthrone  and 


NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE       135 

enhance,  by  every  possible  detail  of  ornamentation,  comfort 
and  color — love,  sensual  gratification — that  man  in  the  main 
moves,  and  by  that  alone.  Protean  as  this  impulse  may  be,  and 
it  takes  many  forms,  it  stands  revealed  as  the  underlying 
reality  of  a  thousand  astounding  impulses  or  disguises — 
pathetic,  lying,  simulating,  denying,  but  the  same  old  impulse 
everywhere  and  under  all  circumstances.  Refracted  as  it  is 
by  opposition,  misunderstanding,  failure  into  a  million  glister- 
ing and  lovely  or  pathetic  things,  it  may  seem  to  be  what  it 
is  not;  but  hold  fast,  trace  it  back,  and  there,  at  bottom,  sex 
appears,  a  craving  for  love,  and  its  accompanying  sensual 
gratification,  and  there  is  no  other. 

But  the  thing  which  is  especially  interesting  about  America 
is  its  infantile  blindness  to  all  this  and  the  pathetic  and  at 
least  semi-neurotic  condition  into  which  we  have  fallen  in 
consequence.  As  one  views  American  life  to-day  it  can  be 
safely  asserted  that  scarcely  one  of  a  hundred  American  men 
or  women  view  this  phase  of  life  intelligibly,  although  they 
respond  to  it  normally  enough  in  some  of  its  other  phases. 
Usually  before  their  so-called  vision,  and  between  them  and 
their  daily  deeds,  hangs  an  inane  and  miasmatic  cloud  of 
cant  and  make-believe.  The  physiologically  and  biologically 
informed  know,  of  course,  how  ridiculous  is  the  assumption 
that  sex  union  is  the  narrowly  "moral"  function  which  the 
religionists  would  have  one  believe,  although  moral  it  may  well 
be  in  some  larger  constructive  sense,  as  is  any  other  life  pro- 
cess, if  life  itself  can  be  termed  moral.  But  that  it  can  in- 
volve, without  becoming  profoundly  ridiculous,  a  narrow  or 
sectarian  religious  interpretation,  is  open  to  question.  That  it 
has  a  sad,  tragic,  even  ruthless  aspect  (read  Maeterlinck's 
description  of  the  struggles  of  some  flowers  to  be  born  and 
continue  the  species)  is  not,  scientifically  at  least,  to  be  corn- 
batted.  In  its  biological  aspects  it  has  many,  many  tragic 
sides,  although  so  dull  is  the  race  to  all  but  its  most  indi- 


136       NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE 

vidual  ambitions  and  needs  that  it  cannot  be  expected  to 
sense  this  either.  Indeed,  as  expressed  by  the  impulses  in 
man  (concocted  by  what  psychic  meditation  below  and  on  the 
part  of  what?),  sex  is  an  unregenerate  and  only  partially  con- 
trolled passion  which  has  more  as  its  aim  perhaps  than  is 
dreamed  of  in  the  philosophies  of  man.  It  is  a  fire,  a  chem- 
ical explosion,  really.  It  concerns  not  so  much  the  individual 
as  the  race,  the  endless  unbroken  chain  of  men  and  women, 
however  much  any  individual  may  think  it  concerns  him  alone. 
Instead  of  denouncing  the  individual  for  his  mood  in  regard 
to  all  this,  it  might  be  more  important  to  inquire  how  moral 
in  their  import  are  the  elements  which  compound  and  bring 
about  the  explosion  and  to  treat  him  as  one  of  their  victims. 
The  truth  no  doubt  is  that  in  this  much-maligned  impulse 
which  chemical  forces  beyond  and  above  the  willing  of  men 
are  compounding  lies  the  destiny  of  man  (if  he  has  one),  only 
we  are  not  as  yet  able  to  fathom  that  destiny.  Here  we  come, 
bottles  of  fluid  dynamite  (prepared  by  what  satiric  super-soul, 
and  why?),  and  somewhere  in  the  world  is,  or  may  be,  another 
compound  which  will  set  us  aflame — and  we  are  supposed  to 
connect  this  with  a  narrow  religious  order  or  theory!  I  will 
admit  that  for  the  necessities  of  social  arrangement  and 
relationship  here,  the  necessary  balances  and  inter-adjust- 
ments that  go  to  make  up  a  workable  society  of  beings,  some 
form  of  equation  between  the  less  and  more  avid  sexually, 
the  too  hot  and  the  too  cold,  must  be  and  is  struck,  willy- 
nilly  and  regardless  of  individual  or  man's  moral  theory.  But 
by  what  rule  and  rote?  Is  there  so-called  "justice"  in  it,  or 
"reason,"  or  a  fixed  social  order  or  method  of  procedure?  We 
see  that  in  spite  of  our  fixed  methods  of  moral  procedure  the 
tragedies  continue,  the  waves  and  flames  of  morality  and  im- 
morality come  and  go.  Our  divorce  rate!  Our  sex  tragedies 
and  districts!  And  what  guide  has  the  individual?  The 
Golden  Rule?  A  more  liberal  method  of  adjustment?  In  the 


NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE      137 

past,  Nature  has  tolerated  polygamy,  polyandry  and  an  ab- 
breviated monogamy,  and  may  do  so  again.  The  stress  and 
strain  which  the  present  social  arrangements  show  are  almost 
premonitory. 

But  one  thing  is  certain:  no  hard-and-fast  rule  governing 
this  impulse  has  worked  with  accuracy  for  any  given  length 
of  time,  anywhere.  If  there  are  discovered  or  discoverable  rules 
for  its  control  and  best  management  in  the  interest  of  the 
race  and  so  in  the  interest  of  the  Creator  they  have  not  yet 
been  announced.  We  hear  of  the  duty  of  preserving  the 
sanctity  of  the  home,  maintaining  a  wife  and  raising  a  family 
according  to  the  monogamic  theory.  Well  and  good.  But, 
outside  of  raising  endless  children  to  be  slain  in  wars,  vege- 
tated in  a  routine  factory  life,  worn  threadbare  in  a  vast  and 
internecine  struggle  for  existence,  there  is  not  so  much  to  be 
said  for  that,  either.  Routine  home  life,  even  an  artistic 
breeding-pen,  can  scarcely  be  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  human 
existence,  any  more  than  may  unrestrained  license.  And  how- 
ever comfortable  or  admirable  or  encouraging  the  average 
home  may  be  to  given  individuals,  it  is  not  necessarily  so  to 
all.  There  are  those  who  find  it  confining,  destroying.  And, 
again,  religionists  and  theorists,  moral  and  otherwise,  as  well 
as  the  great  greedy  syndics  and  master  minds  in  business  or 
politics,  prey  upon  the  fruit  of  the  home  and  collect  "spiritual" 
and  material  taxes  and  establish  "spiritual"  as  well  as  material 
autocracies  or  over-lordships  which  in  no  wise  make  for  sex 
morality  any  more  than  for  the  forces  which  destroy  it.  Vice, 
suborned  by  the  wealthy  and  powerful,  as  well  as  the  avid  and 
perverse  among  the  weak,  feeds  upon  the  fruit  of  the  so-called 
moral  home.  The  bull  seal  still  conquers  his  fifty  or  a  hundred, 
and  the  weakling  none.  In  fact,  in  a  so-called  Christian  realm 
the  mistress  abounds,  and  the  high  divorce  rate  attests  much 
private  dissatisfaction  with  the  theory.  Laws  come  and  laws 
go;  and  still  we  are  about  where  we  were  before.  The 


138       NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE 

gardens  of  Aphrodite  still  exist.  The  hetaera  of  Greece  and 
Rome  are  still  with  us — in  our  back  streets  or  our  high- 
priced  apartment  houses.  If  we  no  longer  have  our  streets 
of  the  so-called  "fallen"  or  "evil"  women,  who  walk  in  the 
dark,  is  it  not  because  caution  has  become  the  better  part  of 
trade?  Are  they  not  to  be  found  behind  closed  doors  in  re- 
sponse to  special  rings,  by  card  of  admission,  in  our  best 
streets?  The  endless  pother!  And  still  sex  is  as  vigorous 
and  dominant  as  ever  it  was.  The  riant  scoffers  nod  and 
smile  and  accept  the  new  rules. 

Personally,  after  all  this  time,  my  conclusion  is:  (i),  that 
no  individual,  however  well  or  ill  compounded  physically,  can 
make  or  unmake  his  moods  or  add  one  jot  or  tittle  to  Ms  moral 
desires  or  perfections,  although  he  and  society  (or  conven- 
tion) can  exercise  a  certain  amount  of  restraint — a  restraint 
that  will  almost  invariably  prove  irksome  and  which  he  will 
seek  to  evade;  (2),  that  however  much  theorists,  hypocrites 
and  sincere  religionists,  chill-blooded  or  otherwise,  may  revile 
sex  or  attempt  to  restrain  or  destroy  it,  yet  Nature  (God  or 
the  devil,  or  the  two  in  one)  permits  these  wild  fires  to  be 
generated  in  man,  and,  in  spite  of  all  punishments  and  hin- 
drances, sees  to  it  that  his  passions  overleap  his  fears  and 
judgments  and  cause  him  to  do  all  the  things  that  may  be 
strictly  forbidden  him  but  which  may  nevertheless  be  of  value 
to  the  race  itself;  (3),  that  man  is  not  temperamentally  or 
chemically  a  monogamous  animal,  however  much  the  social 
conditions  and  necessities  by  which  he  finds  himself  sur- 
rounded in  certain  lands  and  times  tend  to  make  him  believe 
so  or  fear,  and  that  a  rough  balance  or  equation  is  all  that 
is  ever  struck  between  his  outward  public  deeds  and  his  inner 
chemic  condition;  (4),  that,  to  this  hour,  there  is  no  city  with- 
out its  percentage  of  prostitution  or  hetsera  of  one  grade  or 
another;  (5),  that  there  is  no  city  or  town  where  some  women 
or  girls  do  not  walk,  secretly  or  openly,  to  accomplish  prostitu- 


NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE       139 

tion  and  where  men  do  not,  secretly  or  openly,  encourage  and 
pursue  them,  the  chemic  necessities  of  their  being  as  much  as 
poverty  impelling  them  to  do  it;  (6),  that  there  is  no  city  or 
town  or  countryside,  anywhere,  where  adultery  or  fornication 
is  not  indulged  in  outside  wedlock  for  love  or  pleasure;  (7), 
that  a  high  percentage  of  men  in  all  walks,  including  priests 
and  clergymen,  look  after  some  one  type  at  least  of  woman 
and  lust  after  her;  (8),  that  a  moderate  percentage  of  women, 
in  marriage  and  out,  seek  the  affection  of  a  given  type  of  man 
temperamentally  or  chemically  agreeable  or  appealing  to  them, 
and  offer  their  bodies  as  a  bid  for  or  sacrifice  to  that  affection; 
(9),  that  women  crave  monogamy  where  their  affections  or  the 
interests  of  their  children  are  involved;  (10),  that  love  of  one 
woman  or  one  man,  or  their  several  or  joint  love  of  children, 
is  likely  to  overlay  and  put  at  rest,  for  the  time  being,  the 
usual  roving  desires  of  sex;  (n),  that  law  in  all  special  in- 
stances is  absolutely  helpless  before  passion,  powerless  either 
to  interpret  its  psychology  or  fix  a  just  measure  of  praise  or 
blame;  (12),  that  convention  has  not  made,  and  cannot  make, 
any  headway  against  a  chemical  scheme  of  life  which  puts 
sex  desires  first  and  all  else  as  secondary  or  socially  con- 
tributory. 

Do  I  seem  illogical  or  inclined  to  exaggerate?  Think  well 
over  the  things  I  have  said.  The  world  has  a  partially  trace- 
able history  covering  more  than  ten  thousand  years;  in  that 
time  nations  have  risen  and  fallen,  law  codes  have  come  and 
gone,  religions  have  dominated  and  been  swept  away.  In  no 
law  code  and  in  no  religion  of  any  nation  has  the  sex  question, 
the  need  of  moderation,  duty  to  family  and  the  like,  been 
ignored.  But  in  all  that  time  the  social  expression  of  sex  has 
never  been  so  much  as  modified,  let  alone  done  away  with. 
The  Mosaic  law  is  all  of  three  thousand  years  old,  yet  what 
has  it  availed?  Are  our  women  all  pure,  our  men  ail  moral? 
Yet,  in  the  face  of  history  and  present-day  occurrences,  the 


140       NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE 

facts  of  divorce  courts,  night  courts,  streets  crowded  with 
prostitution  and  kept  women,  men  seeking  constantly  to  lure 
women,  and  vice  versa,  all  the  million  and  one  evidences  in 
books,  plays,  newspapers  and  social  life  generally  that  sex 
is  the  keynote  of  existence,  there  are  those  who  would  bar  all 
mention  of  it,  harry  the  prostitute,  unduly  punish  the  forni- 
cator,  ostracise  the  woman  who  strays  from  the  path  of  virtue 
or  seeks  in  divorce  a  way  out  of  a  troubled  marital  state. 

What  to  make  of  the  brain  of  man  under  such  circum- 
stances? What  to  say  of  the  thing  that  causes  him  to  fight  the 
passion  of  which  he  is  a  victim?  Necessity  for  equation  and 
balance  in  all  things,  a  very  rough  balance  which  cares  no  more 
for  the  individual  "good"  or  "bad"  than  we  care  for  flies 
or  gnats?  Inherent  love  of  moderation  in  some?  Love  of 
peace  in  some?  Love  of  the  reverse  in  others?  The  tendency 
of  all  things  to  become  static,  even  passionate  temperaments? 
Surely  that,  and  nothing  more.  Yet,  aside  from  that,  there  is 
something  which  does  not  care  for  the  equation-seeking  mood 
of  either  individuals  or  society,  which  is  busy  manufacturing 
and  pouring  into  the  world  new  individuals  with  all  their  new 
dreams,  passions,  lacks  of  equation,  lack  of  a  sense  of  self- 
restraint,  and  sweeping  away  the  old,  the  conservative,  the 
religious,  sanctimonious. 

One  of  the  sanifying  recourses  in  life  is,  of  course,  to  fix 
one's  eye  on  youth  and  note  what  it  desires.  Plainly,  it  is  a 
fair  expression  of  the  thing  that  creates  it,  the  chemic  mood  of 
the  biologic  force,  for  plainly  it  is  closer  to  that  which  creates  it. 
As  the  human  or  physical  machine  ages  and  wears  out  it  is 
prepared,  and  then  only,  to  accept  the  restraints  and  the 
equation  which  society,  in  order  to  maintain  itself,  requires; 
but  not  before.  In  the  main,  youth  blazes  with  non-equational 
fires  and  it  best  represents  that  which  makes  it,  the  concocting 
chemic  impulses  below  or  behind  life.  Is  youth  wrong?  Then 
so  is  the  life  impulse,  for  it  builds  youth  freshly  to  its  needs 


NEUROTIC  AMERICA  AND  THE  SEX  IMPULSE       141 

yearly,  daily.  The  physical  laws  which  seem  to  govern  the 
biologic  impulse  after  it  expresses  itself  in  the  shape  of  youth, 
or  man,  and  compels  it  for  purposes  of  social  expression  to 
submit  to  restraints  and  equation,  is  another  matter,  in- 
herent, perhaps,  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe  itself  and 
not  to  be  avoided  by  the  biologic  impulse  or  its  creatures. 
But  this,  as  I  have  said  before,  does  not  provide  us  with  exact 
rules  for  conducting  ourselves  here  or  how  best  to  subdue  or 
balance  with  other  things  the  enormous  fires  with  which  we 
sometimes  find  ourselves  lit.  Better  admit  at  once  that  hard- 
and-fast  and  cock-sure  rules  or  laws  are  of  no  avail,  and 
trust  to  the  crude  accidents  of  life  to  caution  youth.  A  happy 
balance  between  the  fires  of  youth  and  the  fears  and  chills  of 
age  may  be  desirable,  but,  freely  admitting  that,  can  it  be  fixed 
by  exact  rule?  We  are  inherent  in  some  greater  thing  than 
man — Nature  Herself.  Only  She  knows. 

One  thing  is  sure:  we  are  not  done  with  the  conflict  and 
amazing  super-impulses  of  sex,  and  are  not  likely  to  be  soon. 
And  if  we  were,  would  life  be  the  varied,  fascinating,  humor- 
ous, poetic,  tragic  thing  we  see  it  to  be?  Suppose  the  moralists 
ruled,  with  their  stiff  and  narrow  balance,  and  man  accepted 
their  quiescent  dictates — then  what?  Contrast  it  with  some  of 
the  freer,  more  distinguished  periods — Greece,  Rome,  Italy 
during  the  Renaissance,  France  under  the  Louis,  England 
under  Elizabeth  and  Charles  II.  Consider.  I  for  one  see  no 
immediate  solution,  and  firmly  believe  there  is  none  which  does 
not  end  in  complete  mental  quiescence — balance  or  its  equiv- 
alent, intellectual  and  emotional  or  temperamental  nothing- 
ness, decay  and  dissolution,  with  something  not  so  balanced 
and  therefore  alive,  to  supersede,  if  we  are  to  have  any  form, 
of  life  at  all. 


SECRECY— ITS  VALUE 

IN  the  face  of  a  rampant  and  inane  morality  which  is 
constantly  seeking  to  befog  or  misinterpret  a  world  which 
needs  to  be  seen  quite  clearly  if  man  is  even  partially  to  under- 
stand himself  or  the  conditions  by  which  he  is  confronted,  it  is 
well  to  remember  that  life  is  secret,  nearly  entirely  so,  in  all 
its  phases.  Nature  reveals  Her  secrets  to  no  man,  save  grudg- 
ingly and  peradventure.  By  dint  of  slow  searching  and  be- 
cause of  his  own  necessities  and  sufferings  he  has  discovered 
a  few  things — how  few,  as  contrasted  with  the  vast  sea  of  the 
all  but  undiscoverable,  not  even  the  wisest  can  guess.  And, 
even  so,  it  is  all  a  process  of  inclusion,  and  hence  exclusion. 
How  little  included?  And  how  much  excluded?  And  Her 
secrecy  is  by  no  means  moral  or  ethical  or  generous  in  any 
way.  Yet,  confronted  by  all  the  iron  and  pagan  mysteries  of  a 
catch-as-catch-can  world,  and  seeing  daily  and  hourly  that 
only  the  strong  or  shrewd  or  gifted,  or  those  befriended  by 
them,  survive,  and  the  weak  and  untalented  are  left  to  fester  in 
want,  and  that  only  a  rather  loose  and  not  very  protective 
or  comforting  balance  or  equation  is  struck  between  extremes 
of  any  kind  (even  between  his  so-called  God  and  devil),  man 
still  persists  in  interpreting  his  needs  or  hopes  or  dreams  as 
the  result  of  a  super-tender  administration  of  some  kind,  and 
sniffs  rather  disconsolately,  if  not  quite  unbelievingly,  at  the 
hard  facts  by  which  he  is  confronted.  He  is  so  anxious  to  think 
Nature  kind,  generous,  non-secret.  Indeed,  any  well-reared- 
and-ordered  moralist  or  religionist  would  be  inclined  to  con- 
tend, I  am  sure,  that  the  world  is  not  in  the  main  secret, 

142 


SECRECY— ITS  VALUE  143 

or  at  least  not  maliciously  so,  and  that,  even  if  it  is,  it 
should  not  be — innate  desire  for  balance  and  equation  be- 
tween so-called  evil  and  good  always  urging  him  to  this  con- 
clusion. 

But,  Nature  is  secret,  quite  maliciously  so  at  times,  and 
Her  secrecy  is  not  to  be  escaped,  even  by  those  most  anxious 
to  condemn  that  phase  of  Her  character.  All  of  us,  as  a  part 
of  Her,  reflect  this  chiefest  characteristic  as  well  as  the  most 
powerful  instinct  implanted  in  us  by  Her — namely,  the  desire 
to  preserve  ourselves  and  propagate  our  kind  as  against  the 
lives  and  interests  of  all  others.  And,  being  confronted  also  by 
one  of  Her  sternest  regulations,  that  only  the  shrewd,  the 
cunning,  the  appropriate  or  desired  or  presently  essential  or 
fit  shall  survive  when  assailed  by  millions  of  other  creatures 
not  so  fortunately  equipped,  we  are  compelled  to  admit  that  we 
are  at  least  a  part  of  a  more  or  less  internecine  struggle  and 
so  do  our  best,  willy-nilly,  as  time  and  occasion  may  warrant  or 
suggest  to  escape  via  secrecy,  intrigue,  cunning  and  the  like. 
In  other  words,  we  are  compelled  to  conceal  that  which  is 
important  to  us  and  possibly  inimical  to  others,  showing,  in 
times  of  stress,  only  that  which  will  help  us;  hence,  we,  along 
with  everything  else,  are  compelled  to  be  secret  whether  we 
wish  to  or  not. 

It  may  be  mentioned  here  that  there  is  a  certain  fish  whose 
scientific  name  is  Mycteroperca  Bonaci  and  whose  common 
name  is  Black  Grouper,  which  is  of  considerable  value  in 
this  connection.  It  is  a  healthy  creature,  growing  to  a  weight 
of  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  and  living  a  comfortable 
existence  because  of  its  very  remarkable  ability  to  adapt  itself 
to  conditions.  Now  while  that  very  subtle  thing  which  we  call 
the  creative  power  and  which  we  endow  with  the  spirit  of  the 
Beatitudes  is  supposed  to  build  this  mortal  life  in  such  fashion 
that  only  honesty  and  virtue  shall  prevail,  still  it  builds  this 
fish.  Moving  in  its  dark  world  of  green  waters,  Mycteroperca 


i44  SECRECY— ITS  VALUE 

has  the  very  essence  of  secrecy,  the  power  of  almost  instan- 
taneous change  into  something  quite  different  in  so  far  as 
appearances  are  concerned.  Its  great  superiority  over  other 
fishes  lies  in  an  almost  unbelievable  power  of  simulation,  which 
relates  solely  to  the  pigmentation  of  its  skin.  In  electrical 
mechanics  we  pride  ourselves  on  our  ability  to  make  over  one 
brilliant  scene  into  another  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  and 
flash  picture  after  picture  before  the  onlooker.  The  directive 
control  of  Mycteroperca  over  its  appearance  is  so  wonderful 
that  you  cannot  look  at  it  long  without  feeling  that  you  are 
witnessing  something  spectral  and  unnatural,  so  brilliant  is 
its  power  to  deceive.  Lying  at  the  bottom  of  a  bay,  it  can 
simulate  the  mud  by  which  it  is  surrounded.  Hidden  in  the 
folds  of  glorious  leaves,  it  is  of  the  same  markings.  Lurk- 
ing in  a  flaw  of  light,  it  is  like  the  light  itself  shining  dimly 
in  water.  Its  power  to  elude  or  strike  unseen  is  of  the 
greatest.  One  might  go  far  afield  and  gather  less  forceful 
indictments — the  horrific  spider  spinning  his  trap  for  the  un- 
thinking fly;  the  lovely  Drosera  (Sundew)  using  its  crimson 
calyx  for  a  smothering-pit  in  which  to  seal  and  devour  the 
victim  of  its  beauty;  the  rainbow-colored  jellyfish  that  spreads 
its  prismed  tentacles  like  streamers  of  great  beauty,  only  to 
sting  and  torture  all  that  falls  within  their  radiant  folds.  Man 
himself  is  busy  digging  the  pit  and  fashioning  the  snare,  but 
he  will  not  believe  it.  His  feet  are  in  the  trap  of  circumstances; 
his  eyes  are  on  an  illusion. 

But  what  would  you  say  was  the  intention  of  the  overruling 
intelligent,  constructive  force  which  gives  to  Mycteroperca  this 
ability?  To  fit  it  to  be  truthful?  Or  would  you  say  that 
subtlety,  chicanery,  trickery  were  here  at  work?  An  imple- 
ment of  illusion  one  might  readily  suspect  it  to  be,  a  living  lie, 
a  creature  whose  business  it  is  to  appear  what  it  is  not,  to  sim- 
ulate that  with  which  it  has  nothing  in  common,  the  power  of 
its  enemies  to  forfend  against  which  is  little.  The  indictment 
is  fair. 


SECRECY— ITS  VALUE  145 

Yet  is  it  not  ridiculous  that  where  all  Nature  is  working 
in  shadow,  each  thing  hiding  from  the  other  its  processes  or 
thoughts  of  power  and  its  intentions,  that  we  ask  of  poor, 
spindling,  cowardly,  scurrying  man,  dodging  perpetually  here 
and  there  between  the  giant  legs  of  chance  and,  in  so  far 
as  he  is  concerned,  all  but  malign  forces,  that  he  stand  up 
and  speak  the  truth  in  all  things  (would  that  he  could  dis- 
cover it!)  or  that  he  say  boldly  and  on  all  occasions  what  is 
in  his  heart,  what  are  his  intentions?  Of  old  we  know  that 
men  do  not,  anywhere,  save  in  consonance  with  their  interests, 
and  yet  the  silly,  self-interested  request  persists;  a  demon- 
stration of  how  thought  or  observation  and  deduction  and 
principally  self-interest  lag  behind  fact.  The  only  thing  which 
opposes  secrecy  and  brings  it  to  light  is  the  skill  for  secrecy 
in  others;  another  illustration  of  the  law  of  balance  or  equa- 
tion in  Nature,  the  necessity  of  give  and  take  in  life,  the 
desire  of  the  other  person  to  be  protected  from  too  much 
secrecy  on  the  part  of  others.  But  the  folly  of  the  appeal  in 
its  ideal  form,  the  charm  that  would  disappear  with  the  arrival 
of  absolute  frankness,  the  mystery  that  would  go! 

Ninety-nine  and  ninety-nine  one-hundredths  of  all  the  in- 
terest or  charm  of  all  the  creatures  of  the  earth  and  of  the 
circumstances  and  spaces  and  conditions  in  which  they  find 
themselves,  is  the  secrecy — or,  what  is  the  same,  the  mystery 
or  subtlety — which  attaches  to  them.  We  do  not  know  them; 
we  do  not  understand  them;  we  wonder  at  their  states,  their 
thoughts,  their  moods,  what  they  will  do,  which  way  turn, 
when  attacked,  whom  attack,  whom  deceive,  whom  praise, 
whom  reward.  Secrecy — secrecy — mystery.  If  it  were  gone 
the  illusion  of  life  itself,  which  is  all  that  it  is,  would  be  gone 
also.  And  we  are  cautioned  to  love  truth  and  to  say  truly  and 
to  our  own  hurt  if  necessary!  And  some  advocate  this  so 
earnestly  as  part  of  the  service  due  the  other  person,  or  of 
life  to  us.  Yet,  in  the  main,  it  comes  to  this:  every  other  is 
to  speak  the  truth  to  us,  to  conceal  no  important  fact  that 


i46  SECRECY— ITS  VALUE 

might  be  helpful  to  us  from  us,  to  do  justice  to  us,  to  think 
kindly  of  us. 

A  fine  program,  and  absolutely  consonant  with  our  desire 
to  live,  prosper,  succeed,  regardless  of  the  well-being  of  every 
other. 

But  let  us  reverse  the  program  and  advocate  to  ourselves, 
even  in  jest,  that  we  do  strict  justice  (if  we  could  discover  what 
that  might  be)  to  every  other  or  tell  him  the  exact  truth 
about  ourselves  (heaven  forbid!),  our  adventures,  dreams, 
schemes;  to  think  kindly  (yes,  even  to  think  kindly  in  the 
face  of  the  little  that  we  know)  of  him.  The  Catholic  hier- 
archy— which,  by  the  way,  has  little  to  do  with  Messianic 
Christianity  and  its  fine-spun  ideals — so  thoroughly  under- 
stood human  nature  of  the  middle  centuries  as  well  as  to-day 
that  it  introduced  as  an  intermediary  between  man  and  his 
own  conscience,  his  private  shames,  regrets,  fears:  the  confes- 
sional (secrecy)  in  order  that  the  average  individual  might 
free  his  soul  of  crimes  without  exposing  himself  to  the  fierce 
light  of  criticism  which  a  public  confession  or  truth-telling 
would  entail.  And  the  hesitation  and  even  shame,  for  all  its 
cloak  of  secrecy,  with  which  the  confessional  is  approached! 
The  Church  knew  that  man  was  not  equal  to  the  task  of  con- 
fronting his  own  accusing  conscience  in  the  open  or  before 
others  but  must  confess  in  secret,  if  at  all.  Hence  the  drawn 
curtain  and  the  reward  of  absolution  for  confession! 

War,  in  the  main  the  result  of  economic  pressure,  is  an 
illustration  of  the  necessity  for  secrecy,  or  rather  the  methods 
by  which  war  is  made — strategy,  no  less.  Mere  brute  num- 
bers clouting  each  other  to  obtain  a  numerical  supremacy  is 
nothing.  A  soldier  worthy  the  rank  of  corporal  would  smile  at 
such  a  program.  Secrecy  is  the  thing,  the  devising  of  traps  and 
lures  whereby  the  enemy  may  be  betrayed  and  to  his  undoing. 
The  spider  weaving  his  net,  the  trapper  devising  his  traps,  the 
snake  moving  in  grasses  the  color  of  itself,  is  no  different  to  the 
general  who  by  strategy  (and  what  general  without  strategy 


SECRECY— ITS  VALUE  147 

is  worthy  the  name?)  seeks  to  encompass  the  enemy.  Shake- 
speare in  Macbeth,  by  means  of  the  witches,  suggests  so  archly 
the  value  of  secrecy  to  the  so-called  good  or  just  (in  that 
instance  MacDuff)  in  fighting  evil  (Macbeth)  by  having  the 
soldiery  of  MacDuff  simulate  Birnam  Wood  by  cutting  off 
and  carrying  the  branches  of  its  trees  towards  his  castle,  thus 
lyingly  fulfilling  the  prophecy  of  the  witches  to  Macbeth  that 
he  should  not  be  injured  until  Birnam  Wood  should  rise  and 
come  against  him,  and  so  destroying  his  self-confidence.  And, 
indeed,  is  not  stark,  threatening  secrecy,  non-moral  force  that 
it  is,  the  thing  which  gives  color  if  not  joy  to  life  and  which 
lends  surprise,  uncertainty,  fear  and  hence  freedom  from 
ennui  to  life,  and,  by  contrast,  hope  and  calculation,  the 
greatest  and  most  charming  of  all  our  gifts?  For  what  game 
or  sport,  implying,  as  they  do,  friendly  contest,  would  be 
worthy  the  name  if  it  did  not  involve  the  element  of  chance  or 
uncertainty,  or,  in  other  words,  secrecy,  to  the  extent  that  one 
cannot  beforehand  determine  the  outcome? 

Again,  are  not  all  of  our  ambitions,  if  not  as  to  their  pur- 
port at  least  as  to  their  outcome,  secret?  Nature  provides 
secrecy,  or  uncertainty,  which  is  the  same  thing,  or  darkness 
as  a  condition  for  the  development  of  quite  everything,  from 
seeds  to  human  plans,  and  builds  and  builds  with  us  in  count- 
less ways  and  to  astonishing  results,  and  yet  we  are  not  per- 
mitted to  share  Her  secret.  Our  petty  brains  and  bodies  are 
but  mere  implements  of  sorts  in  Her  hands  whereby  She  is 
constructing  something,  the  significance  or  purpose  of  which 
we  cannot  even  guess  and  which  She  is  at  no  pains  to  reveal. 
She  builds  us  to  contain,  or  rather  to  comprehend,  but  a  mod- 
icum, a  minute  fragment,  of  the  enormous  information  or  secret 
which  is  Hers.  Secrecy  on  Her  part,  you  see. 

If  one  turns  to  the  pages  of  science,  what  a  masterly  array 
of  natural  diplomacy  and  artifice  is  there  displayed!  The 
fishes  of  the  sea  imitating  the  coloring  of  the  grasses  or 
shadows  of  the  deep  in  which  they  hide  and  by  means  of 


i48  SECRECY— ITS  VALUE 

which  they  escape  their  enemies  (protective  coloring  is  the 
scientific  name) ;  insects  the  same,  in  so  far  as  foliage  and 
grasses  are  concerned;  birds  the  same;  reptiles  the  same; 
man.  for  all  his  noble  theories  and  dreams  of  a  generous  and 
unselfish  mode  of  conduct,  the  same;  as  artificial  and  secretive 
as  any,  he.  The  stripling  lawyer  imitates  the  look  and  manner 
of  his  intellectual  superior — words,  phrases,  carriage,  side- 
whiskers  even — in  order  to  seem  his  equal,  or  in  other  words  to 
conceal  (secrecy,  you  see)  the  fact  that  he  is  not  his  equal, 
from  some  trusting  and  unsophisticated  client.  Protective 
coloring,  as  it  were. 

Take  again  the  instance  of  a  man  beginning  to  rise  finan- 
cially and  wishing  to  appear  the  equivalent  of  men  far  richer 
than  himself.  His  office  is  in  their  vicinity,  his  residence  in 
their  neighborhood.  He  is  in  their  club  if  possible,  their 
church,  their  directories.  He  is  not  as  rich  as  they  are,  but 
wishes  to  conceal  the  fact.  It  is  not  good  for  the  world  to 
know  that  he  is  not  what  he  is  not.  His  few  public  deeds 
would  not  be  as  acceptable  or  he  would  be  compelled  to  doff 
the  uniform  he  so  much  desires  to  wear,  the  manners,  along 
possibly  with  the  emoluments  thereof,  or  the  hope  of  them. 
Secrecy — secrecy — secrecy.  A  seeming  only,  where  reality 
would  leave  life  bare  and  hard. 

And  is  it  not  the  same  with  doctors,  merchants,  professionals 
of  all  kinds?  To  this  day  is  not  medicine,  like  most  other 
professions,  fond  of  mystery  and  secrecy.  .  .  .  Latin  for  in- 
stance, in  preparing  its  prescriptions,  thereby  giving  them  an 
air  of  superiority  which  is  not  necessarily  there  at  all,  or  to 
prevent  the  patient  from  knowing  what  is  being  put  into  his 
stomach,  or  to  make  the  cure  seem  more  formidable  by  being 
mysterious  or  secret.  And  to  this  hour,  lawyers  delighting  in 
magnificently  darksome  briefs,  which  in  simple  language  would 
be  understandable  to  all  and  far  less  fearsome.  Again,  religion, 
the  Catholic  and  many  other  versions,  rejoicing  in  a  ritual 
which,  if  presented  or  sung  in  English,  would  be  just  as  im- 


SECRECY— ITS  VALUE  149 

pressive  to  the  really  intelligent  if  it  possessed  any  genuine 
merit  or  appeal.  But  to  the  ignorant  laity,  according  to  the 
thoughts  of  the  churchman,  it  might  not  be;  hence  the  Latin. 
And  perhaps  it  is  as  it  should  be,  for  do  not  the  ignorant  and 
the  savage  invariably  crave  that  which  they  cannot  under- 
stand? It  may  be  that  they  desire  something  more  symbolic 
of  all  they  feel  but  cannot  express,  a  quantity  and  quality  of 
mysterious  inner  moods  and  emotions  which  no  human  spoken 
words,  especially  those  of  their  own  tongue,  would  even 
suggest. 

Hence  the  priest  and  preacher,  Shi'ite  or  Sunnite,  Dervish, 
Buddhist,  or  Brahman  formalist,  one  and  all,  although  ordinary 
human  beings  like  ourselves,  are  trained,  and  most  carefully, 
in  the  protective  coloring  of  their  profession.  For  essentially 
they  are  no  different,  or,  with  very  rare  exception,  no  more 
spiritual,  no  more  self-sacrificial — in  other  words,  no  more  un- 
natural— than  any  of  their  fellows.  But,  in  due  process  of 
time,  the  manners,  customs,  rules  even  of  those  who  by  chance 
or  perad venture  (the  accident  of  disposition  or  revulsion  from 
too  much  of  something  else)  have  been  tender,  self-sacrificial, 
humanitarian,  have  given  these  latter  their  cue.  They  now 
know,  let  us  say,  what  "good"  or  self-restraining  or  humanity- 
loving  men  and  women  in  times  past  have,  at  one  time  and 
another,  been  like,  how  they  walked  in  humility,  denied  them- 
selves the  pleasures,  even  the  necessities  of  life,  divided  a  cloak 
with  a  beggar  or  gave  it  whole,  went  with  an  importunate 
enemy  two  miles  instead  of  one,  turned  the  other  cheek  to  one 
who  had  smitten  them  on  one,  gave  the  last  of  money  or  food 
to  one  who  was  hungered,  shelter  to  the  shelterless,  warmth 
to  the  cold,  ignored  frivolity  or  laughter  because  of  so  much 
existing  misery.  And  so  those  who,  without  performing  similar 
discomforting  services,  would  like  to  appear  thus,  now  know 
what  to  do,  how  such  an  one,  assuming  that  he  minister  to 
the  weak,  the  erring,  the  deficient,  should  conduct  himself, 
his  most  appropriate  airs,  manners,  moods.  Hence — but  does 


150  SECRECY— ITS  VALUE 

one  need  to  call  attention  to  the  vast  system  of  protective 
coloring  which  now  produces  saviors,  Samaritans,  ministers  by 
the  hundreds  of  thousands  throughout  the  world,  all  pre- 
sumably embracing  the  qualities  which  make  the  self-sacri- 
ficial character  important,  if  it  is  important,  yet  who  perform 
few  if  any  of  those  deeds  which  the  coloring  implies:  the 
"cloth,"  the  hats,  the  reversed  collars,  the  severe  black,  sign  of 
abstemiousness,  self-sacrifice,  putting  aside  of  the  vanities, 
shows  and  pleasures  of  this  world. 

Of  course  there  is  always  the  rare  individual  born  so  strong, 
so  wise,  so  courageous,  that  he  needs  few  if  any  disguises  in 
order  to  make  life  palatable  to  him,  or  his  way  in  it.  But  he 
is  rare,  and,  even  when  present,  may  not  always  proceed  with 
ease  or  fearlessly  but  must  disguise  the  courage  and  intelligence 
which  he  possesses  (secrecy).  Even  he,  when  dealing  with 
weaker,  as  well  as  stronger,  individuals  and  groups,  dare  not 
show  forth  his  true  strength,  save  in  their  behalf,  unless  he 
would  evoke  their  destroying  anger.  For  masses,  lacking 
power  as  to  their  individual  units,  are  infuriated  by  one  who  is 
not  so  constituted,  who  offends  by  his  strength  their  own  fu- 
tility. All  lesser  strengths,  whether  represented  by  individuals 
or  masses,  are  envious  and  jealous  of  power.  And  the  strong 
hate  the  strong  quite  as  much  as  they  do  the  weak  when  the 
latter  are  opposed  to  them.  And,  vice  versa,  the  weak  look 
upon  the  strong  as  driving  masters,  but  the  strong  look  upon 
the  strong  as  rivals  seeking  power  equal  to  their  own,  or 
equal  to  the  task  of  displacing  them.  Hence  their  bitter  and 
destructive  rage;  the  hate  of  tiger  for  tiger,  for  instance,  bull 
for  bull.  Secrecy,  secrecy,  here  as  elsewhere  apparently  the  best 
policy  Nature  has  been  able  to  devise  the  only  or  the 
essential  one,  the  one  most  employed.  Truly  the  wise,  however 
powerful,  disguise  their  power  and  wisdom.  They  go  softly, 
speak  kindly,  advocate  justice  or  equation  in  all  things,  as 
well  they  may,  seeing  that  they  themselves  may  stand  in  need 


SECRECY— ITS  VALUE  151 

of  it  at  any  turn;  and,  if  they  work  their  will,  work  it  in  the 
dark  and  alone  as  much  as  possible. 

What,  then,  shall  we  say  of  life  when  confronted  by  truths 
such  as  these — that  it  is  offensive,  unbearable,  a  thing  to  be 
wept  over,  shunned,  departed  from  as  quickly  as  possible? 
I  think  not.  Nature  has  always  been  so,  and  men  for  millions 
of  years  have  undertaken  life  with  all  its  difficulties  and 
subtleties  and  have  done  well  enough.  Indeed,  they  have 
thrived,  like  all  those  who  sharpen  their  souls  against  diffi- 
culty. It  is  Nature's  way.  With  steel  She  cuts  steel,  with 
subtlety  subtlety,  and  the  whole  process  appears  to  be  one  in 
which  a  more  capable  device  for  enduring  the  inherent  rest- 
lessness and  changefulness  of  Nature  Herself  is  steadily  pre- 
pared. It  is  one  of  dull  wit  upon  whom,  like  barnacles, 
illusions  fasten.  And  he  is  in  error  who  assumes  that  the 
processes  of  Nature  are  different  from  those  of  man.  We  are 
like  life,  like  the  chemicals  and  forces  of  which  we  are  com- 
posed, and  have  always  been  so.  Only  theory  and  dogma, 
growing  upon  and  obscuring  sluggish  minds,  have  permitted 
the  rise  of  a  contra-conception.  We  should  brush  the  cobwebs 
from  our  eyes  and  do  away  with  illusion.  In  so  far  as  possible, 
and  as  did  the  gladiators  of  old,  we  should  face  life  with  such 
weapons  as  we  may,  some  with  raw  strength  and  short  sword 
and  shield,  others  with  net  and  trident;  one  relying  on  brute 
strength  if  need  must,  the  other  on  the  skill  and  craft  with 
which  he  may  enmesh  and  slay.  There  is  no  other  way.  Life 
is  so,  and  only  the  cowardly  or  the  dull  or  the  weak  will  either 
fail  to  see  or  endeavor  to  evade  so  solemn  and  even  terrible 
a  truth. 


IDEALS,  MORALS,  AND  THE  DAILY  NEWSPAPER 

FOR  two  centuries  now  if  not  longer  the  newspapers,  rather 
than  the  preachers  and  reformers  generally  who  preceded 
and  still  parallel  them,  have  been  elevating  themselves  to  the 
roles  of  soothsayer,  prophet,  and  guardians  of  all  phases  of 
virtue,  honesty  and  the  like,  to  say  nothing  of  those  shibbo- 
leths of  the  would-be  intellectually  dominant,  "justice"  and 
"truth."  And  the  particular  views  of  these  papers  have  come 
to  have  an  undue  weight  with  those  so  moderately  equipped 
intellectually  as  to  look  upon  them  as  moral  leaders. 
Experiments  in  government  and  phases  of  moral  self-control, 
public  and  private,  are  there  constantly  advocated  for  the  good 
of  the  other  man,  yet  nearly  always  in  accordance  with  the  cur- 
rent bias  or  the  direction  of  the  interests  of  the  paper.  Yet 
back  of  these  papers,  and  in  spite  of  a  public  following  which 
is  supposed  to  regulate  or  control  or  suggest  their  policy  and 
viewpoint,  is  always,  or  nearly  so,  an  individual  or  group  of 
individuals,  possibly  a  self-interested  organization  (com- 
mercial, religious  or  otherwise)  with  perhaps  no  more  intellec- 
tual grip  on  the  social  and  spiritual  complexities  of  the  world 
than  any  other  individual  of  average  capacity  and  judgment, 
possibly  not  so  much.  Yet  with  the  tremendous  leverage  of 
circulation,  plus  a  serviceable  and  profitable  and  aggressive 
counting-room  to  help  out,  their  moral  and  social  pronuncia- 
mentos  ridiculously  enough  become  all  but  sacrosanct,  irre- 
futable, colossal!  Yet  after  all  is  said  and  done,  here  is  nothing 
more  than  an  individual,  all  too  human  perhaps,  or  if  not  that, 
a  group  represented  by  one  individual  possibly,  seeking  via 
this  same  lever  (circulation)  the  special,  particular  things 

152 


IDEALS,  MORALS,  AND  THE  DAILY  NEWSPAPER  153 

which  he  or  it  or  they  crave.  And  as  a  rule  he  or  his 
group  is  truckling  and  hand-rubbing  to  that  which  he  or  it 
or  they  imagine  the  time  requires,  but  seeking  always  cir- 
culation first,  as  though  that  were  the  be-all  and  end-all  of 
all  value,  wisdom  and  duty. 

And  yet,  in  America  at  least,  where  will  you  find  a  citizen 
who  does  not  to  a  marked  extent  reverence  the  opinions  of 
his  paper?  The  slavish  manner  in  which  in  certain  regions  to 
this  day  the  voters  follow  a  paper  and  the  manner  in  which 
the  American  press  has  successfully  clouded  issue  after  issue 
since  America  began — the  currency  issue  for  one,  the  slavery 
issue  for  another,  the  tariff  issue  for  a  third,  the  trust  issue 
for  a  fourth,  the  profiteering  and  European  war  issues  at  the 
present  moment.  And  where  will  you  find  a  newspaper  not 
advertising  passing  panaceas  that  it  knows  cannot  heal  (I  am 
not  talking  about  patent  medicines),  or  admitting  that  a 
satisfactory  social  solution  for  the  woes  of  the  millions  cannot 
be  found,  or  admitting  frankly  that  human  law  is  the  wide- 
spread net  that  it  is,  through  which  great  and  small  alike  skip 
briskly,  chance  and  accident  restraining  some  and  releasing 
others?  Only  when  the  big  skip  through  the  lesion  is  greater. 
Or  where  will  you  find  a  newspaper  that  will  freely  admit  that 
the  Ten  Commandments  are  not  after  all  God-given  law  (do 
not  think  for  a  moment  that  they  privately  believe  they  are), 
or  that  they  constitute  anything  more  than  a  form  of  social 
agreement  based  for  their  validity  on  the  will  of  the  majority 
and  not  holding  where  men  do  not  believe  them  to  be  true 
and  not  followed  by  any  spiritually  destructive  consequences 
where  men  do  not  accept  them  to  be  spiritually  true?  Life 
pours  through  the  reportorial,  editorial  and  counting-rooms 
of  the  average  newspaper  pell-mell  quite  as  it  does  elsewhere, 
only  a  little  more  so.  Those  at  the  head  note  well  the  secrecy, 
the  self-interest,  the  "policy"  running  through  all  things,  the 
struggles  of  all  individuals  and  organizations  to  grow,  usually 
at  the  expense  of  everything  else;  yet  editorially,  and  at  the 


154  IDEALS,  MORALS,  AND  THE  DAILY  NEWSPAPER 

very  best,  a  balance  or  dependent  equation  between  rival  clash- 
ing interests — rival,  hungry,  self-seeking  hordes — is  all  that  is 
ever  struck  here,  although  this  is  all  but  invariably  announced 
as  the  Sinaitic  command  of  an  all-wise,  omnipotent,  omni- 
present intelligence,  the  newspaper  editor  or  owner  posing  as 
its  especial  mouthpiece  and  forwarder!  Is  it  not  too  ridiculous 
that  so  human  and  fallible  or  greedy  and  venal  a  thing  as  the 
average  newspaper  should  set  itself  up  to  be  a  moral  and  at 
times  even  a  religious  arbiter  of  a  community? 

Yet  where  would  be  the  circulation  of  the  average  paper  if  it 
did  not  so  do?  And  where  would  it  be  if  it  attempted  to 
practice  what  it  preached,  literally  and  for  itself,  as  it  so  freely 
advises  others  to  do?  As  all  those  well  know  who  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  organization  or  control  of  anything  in  life, 
newspapers  included,  the  Beatitudes,  as  Christ  laid  them  down 
in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  are  not  workable  and  never 
have  been  practically.  Yet  where  will  you  find  a  newspaper 
honestly  so  stating,  or  even  whispering  a  serious  doubt?  On 
the  contrary,  is  it  not  the  absolute  workability  of  these  that 
has,  hitherto  at  least,  been  most  violently  insisted  upon,  and 
by  organizations  which  well  know  the  pagan  complexities  of 
life  and  are  in  no  way  representative  of  even  the  faintest  ap- 
proach toward  a  beatific  conception  of  anything?  "Do  not  as 
I  do  but  as  I  say."  That  only  quiescence  and  decay  could 
follow  the  enforcement  of  any  such  program  as  the  Beatitudes 
or  the  fixed  rules  of  justice,  truth,  etc.,  advocated  by  the 
average  daily  paper  or  any  one  else,  is  not  only  scientifically 
demonstrable  by  chemistry  and  physics  but  is  a  truism  to  the 
average,  and  even  less  than  average,  constructive  and  even 
newspaper  mind.  Nearly  every  one  with  any  claim  to  intelli- 
gence or  experience  understands  this,  yet  where  will  you  find 
a  newspaper  or  any  other  public  medium  of  expression  ventur- 
ing on  this  simple  truth?  The  average  man  is  still  in  leading 
strings  to  various  silly  theories,  religious  or  otherwise,  fos- 
tered by  self-interested  groups,  or  to  his  hope  of  temporary 


IDEALS,  MORALS,  AND  THE  DAILY  NEWSPAPER  155 

human  prosperity,  and  these  are  the  things  which  still  keep 
him  in  the  wake  of  various  sophisticated  journals  which  cun- 
ningly play  upon  his  illusions.  Indeed  he  flees  exact  fact  as 
though  it  were  the  plague.  Blessed  words  or  the  sweet  milk 
of  romance  and  prevarication  are  the  things  which  entertain 
and  soothe  him  most.  In  other  words — think  of  this  ridiculous 
and  paradoxical  fact! — a  creature  invents  a  bugaboo  and 
then  kneels  down  and  worships  it.  It  forges  chains  for  its  so- 
called  intellect,  and  then  groans  or  rests  content  under  their 
binding  weight. 

But  (to  continue  this  slight  diatribe)  imagine  the  staff  of 
any  newspaper  even  attempting  to  follow  any  rules  save  those 
which  govern  the  survival  of  the  fit,  or  failing  to  cast  the 
Beatitudes  out  of  doors  when  it  comes  to  their  special  interests 
or  the  prosperity  of  the  several  functions  which  they  per- 
form! Editorially  the  Beatitudes  prove  profitable  as  texts  for 
moral  preachment  and  mass  consumption,  but  in  the  counting- 
office  or  the  gathering  of  news  how  different!  And  as  for 
going  two  miles  with  a  traveler  when  he  had  compelled  you  to 
go  one,  or  turning  the  other  cheek  when  the  first  had  been 
smitten!  These  things  do  not  fall  within  the  realm  of  the 
practical  and  are  therefore  not  in  the  purview  of  any  news- 
paper organization  except  in  the  editorial  or  pulpiteering  de- 
partment, and  that  intended  to  catch  the  pennies  of  the 
religionists. 

So  daily  we  have  the  spectacle  of  pages  that  in  one  column 
misrepresent  the  motives  of  the  social  or  political  enemies 
of  this  or  that  particular  newspaper  organization,  or  that  play 
up  to  the  subtleties  of  vice  or  crime  for  their  news  or  dramatic 
values,  or  that  display  to  the  eyes  of  the  young  and  old  alike 
all  the  misadventures  and  incalculable  subterfuges  of  a 
treacherous  universe,  while  in  another  column,  constantly 
reiterated,  appear  the  words  right,  justice,  mercy,  truth,  ten- 
derness, duty,  etc.,  as  representing  a  definite  program  for  con- 
duct for  the  other  person  always,  easily  followed  and  easily 


156  IDEALS,  MORALS,  AND  THE  DAILY  NEWSPAPER 

achieved — by  him.  Yes,  for  the  other  person,  outside  of  any 
given  newspaper  office,  there  are  always  God-given  and  im- 
mutable rules  which  spell  peace  and  happiness  for  him,  that 
are  invariably  to  be  practiced,  if  you  will  believe  these  same 
papers,  by  the  majority,  especially  of  their  readers.  And  in- 
deed these  rules  are  by  them  persistently  represented  as  the 
will  and  thought  of  a  definite,  definable  God — He  who  spoke 
from  Sinai,  or  who  walked  to  Calvary  (quite  different  Gods,  by 
the  way!) — to  fly  in  the  face  of  whom  or  which  leads  only  to 
destruction.  Yet  all  that  is  needed,  as  they  well  know,  in  so 
far  as  a  reasonable  guide  to  conduct  is  concerned  (and  all  that 
we  ever  get,  whether  via  the  law  or  the  average  motivating 
impulses  of  man)  is  the  perception  and  the  fact  of  the  neces- 
sity for  a  certain  equation  or  balance  in  all  things,  i.  e.,  the 
Golden  Rule,  mystic  heavens  or  hells  and  the  clerical  repre- 
sentatives of  the  same  with  their  collections  and  false  notions 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  Yet  where  will  you  find 
a  newspaper  with  sufficient  courage  to  say  so?  Where?  Is  it 
not  here  that  one  should  pause  and  inquire  whether  the  news- 
papers, aside  from  their  purely  repor tonal  functions  (which 
latter  might  well  be  vised  under  stricter  libel,  perjury  and  false 
witness  laws  than  those  prevailing  at  present),  should  receive 
.so  much  as  even  a  moment's  serious  consideration? 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE 
A  VARIANT  IN  PHILOSOPHIC  VIEWPOINT 

IN  society,  where  man  is  constantly  scheming  out  methods  of 
procedure  and  how  his  ideas  and  feelings  and  appetites  can 
be  brought  to  a  harmonious  workable  state,  a  certain  recip- 
rocating smoothness  of  exchange  and  balance  must  be,  and 
apparently  has  been,  achieved.  It  is  like  those  constructive 
adjustments  which  make  any  machine  possible,  and  has  appar- 
ently given  rise  to  such  conceptions  of  the  necessary  condi- 
tions for  exchange  as  are  indicated  by  the  words  "harmony," 
"justice,"  "truth,"  possibly  even  "tenderness"  and  "mercy," 
all  of  which  mean  but  one  thing,  if  they  mean  anything  at  all: 
the  need  of  striking  a  balance  or  achieving  an  equilibrium 
between  plainly  restless  and  conflicting  elements.  (Why  rest- 
less? Who  knows?  Why  conflicting?  Who  knows?)  How- 
ever, it  is  this  same  equation  or  balance  which  conditions  so 
large  a  thing  as  a  universe,  whose  prime  impulse  apparently 
is  to  achieve  endless  variety  in  homogeneity,  and  vice  versa. 
But  these  have  been  assumed,  in  an  absolute  and  not  a 
relative  sense,  to  be  attributes  of  a  Supreme  Being  who  is  all- 
just,  all-truthful,  all-merciful,  all-tender,  rather  than  as  me- 
chanic or,  if  one  accepts  the  created  theory  of  life,  as  an  in- 
telligently and  yet  not  moralistically  worked-out  system  of 
minor  arrangements,  reciprocations  and  minute  equations, 
which  have  little  to  do  with  the  aspects  and  movements  of 
much  larger  forces  of  which  as  yet  we  know  nothing  and 
which  at  first  glance  hinder  rather  than  aid  the  intellect  in 
perceiving  the  ultimate  possibilities  of  the  governing  force 
in  any  direction.  Indeed  the  rough  balance  or  equation  every- 

157 


158  EQUATION  INEVITABLE 

where  seen  and  struck  between  element  and  element,  impulse 
and  impulse,  need  and  need,  while  they  might  seem  to  lend 
color  to  the  existence  of  absolute  right,  justice,  truth,  honor, 
etc.,  really  indicates  nothing  more  than  this  rough  approxi- 
mation to  equation  in  everything — force  with  matter,  element 
with  element — as  an  offset  to  incomprehensible  and,  to  mortal 
mind,  even  horrible  and  ghastly  extremes  and  disorder;  noth- 
ing more.  For  in  the  face  of  all  the  schemes  and  contrivances 
whereby  man  may  live  in  harmony  with  his  neighbor  there  is 
the  contrary  fact  that  all  these  schemes  are  constantly  being 
interfered  with  by  contrary  forces,  decays,  mistaken  notions, 
dreams  which  produce  inharmony.  This  can  mean  nothing  if 
not  an  inherent  impulse  in  Nature  that  makes  for  change  and 
so  rearrangement,  regardless  of  any  existing  harmonies  or 
balances,  plus  the  curious  impulse  in  man  and  Nature 
(inertia?)  which  seems  to  wish  to  avoid  change. 

In  spite  of  all  man's  laws,  taboos,  social  understandings, 
agreements  and  beliefs,  there  are  certain  things  done  under  the 
sun  which  do  not  make  for  perpetual  peace,  harmony,  order, 
exact  justice  and  so  the  welfare  of  the  race  as  he  conceives  it; 
nor  do  they  argue  for  the  domination  of  a  harmonious,  all- 
powerful  God  as  man  conceives  Him.  Shocking  as  it  may 
seem,  certain  individuals  and  groups  contrive  to  live  and  thrive 
under  conditions  which,  according  to  other  masses  and  indi- 
viduals who  live  and  contemplate  them,  are  apparently  inimi- 
cal to  the  so-called  best  interests  of  the  race  and  the  plans  of 
its  Creator.  Indeed  the  latter  is  constantly,  according  to  man 
or  his  theorists,  trying  to  overcome  them  and  so  save  Himself. 

Who  and  what  are  these  inimical  forces  which  are  supposed 
to  defy  God  Himself?  Criminals,  liars,  lechers,  murderers, 
self-aggrandizing  intellects  of  all  types  and  sizes,  plus  accident, 
disease,  cataclysm.  At  the  same  time  and  as  if  working  in 
harmony  with  them,  and  to  the  dismay  of  the  religionist  at 
least,  there  are  vast  legions  of  inimical  non-moral  and  seem- 
ingly socially  non-helpful  or  even  destructive  microbes  and 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE  159 

animals  which  seize  on  man,  the  image  of  God,  whose  welfare 
God  seeks,  and  which  live  and  thrive  without  sign  of  conscious- 
ness of  God,  equation,  or  anything  else.  I  am  thinking  of  the 
germs  of  cholera,  smallpox,  yellow  fever,  as  well  as  plagues  of 
locusts,  worms,  wood-lice  or  scales,  rats  and  the  like,  which 
while  destroying  vegetation  and  wealth  most  necessary  to  man 
at  one  point  at  the  same  time  may  and  do  nourish  birds 
inimical  or  helpful  to  him  and  cause  all  things  to  develop 
methods  of  defending  themselves  and  so  aid  their  growth.  The 
chemic  or  mechanistic  interpreter  of  life  discovers  equation 
here  well  enough,  and  even  a  kind  of  rough  harmony,  although 
the  religionist  does  not,  and  so  while  it  is  entirely  possible  for 
a  monistic  or  evolutionary  mystic  to  believe  in  a  series  of  indi- 
vidually severe  but  racially  helpful  checks  and  balances  which 
in  some  of  their  aspects  are  non-moral  but  are  still  driving 
man  on  to  something,  good  or  ill,  it  is  not  possible  for  the 
religionist  or  the  moralist,  taking  him  at  his  own  dogmatic 
valuation,  so  to  do.  God  must  be  good,  exactly  just,  always 
merciful,  as  man  understands  those  things  in  the  realm  in 
which  he  moves.  Though  a  world  of  scientific  data  may  now 
be  brought  forward  to  demonstrate  that  God  is  not  a  person- 
ality with  a  given  moral  direction  or  bias,  as  we  understand 
morals,  or  with  a  here  decipherable  purpose,  yet  he  must  deny 
that.  The  nature  of  God,  if  not  revealed  by  a  voice  of  thunder 
from  a  mountain  top,  is,  according  to  him,  seen  in  the  works 
of  Nature;  and  the  works  of  Nature  are  good. 

But  if  God,  or  Good,  is  imminent,  working  for  some  far-off, 
Divine  event,  why  the  intermediate  pother?  I  wonder  at  times 
why  those  who  ponder  these  things  with  a  view  of  "saving" 
the  race  and  so  eventually  establishing  truth,  justice,  mercy 
here  on  earth,  are  not  permanently  confused  or  hushed  into 
silence  by  the  overwhelming  evidence  that  no  one  thing,  how- 
ever put  together  by  the  human  brain  to  endure,  succeeds  ulti- 
mately in  maintaining  itself  or  that  which  it  dreams  it  will 
maintain.  Religions  come  and  go.  Laws  are  written  and  fade 


160  EQUATION  INEVITABLE 

away.  Moral  laws  change  with  groups  and  climates.  There 
remains  only  this  necessity  for  equation,  some  form  of  adjust- 
ment, reciprocity,  balance  between  the  integral  factors  of  each 
group,  good,  bad  or  indifferent,  which  no  one  thinks  of  trans- 
lating as  the  only  omnipresent  evidence  of  so-called  Divine 
Will.  Indeed,  since  it  is  not  necessarily  directly  connected 
with  the  welfare  of  the  individual  but  is  something  to  which, 
willy-nilly,  he  must  at  least  roughly  adjust  himself,  however 
successfully  he  may  temporarily  evade  it,  if  he  wishes  to  live, 
it  has  come  to  be  looked  upon  by  him  as  the  machinations  of 
a  devil  who  opposes  his  God.  In  other  words,  dogmatic  morals, 
as  we  understand  these,  have  been  introduced,  although  these 
same,  or  our  interpretation  of  what  is  essential  to  the  welfare 
of  life,  may  not  agree  with  the  larger  chemic  urge  and  the 
import  of  this  compulsion  of  balance  as  Nature  views  or  uses 
the  same. 

It  follows,  then,  that  many  things  which  we  now  consider 
essential  to  our  racial  or  spiritual  development,  especially  those 
which  are  intended  to  fit  us  for  a  purely  mythical  heaven,  may 
not  be  essential  at  all.  Especially  may  this  be  true  of  the  many 
taboos  and  so-called  moral  social  arrangements  which  we  have 
established  here  to  make  comfortable  our  little  passing  state 
and  which,  by  a  process  of  egoism  and  self-interest,  we  ascribe 
to  the  will  of  God.  Asceticism  in  morals,  as  well  as  self-im- 
posed deprivations  of  any  kind  intended  to  bring  us  into  con- 
formity with  the  exact  righteousness  of  Nature  or  God,  may 
have  nothing  to  do  with  any  Divine  mandate  or  impulse  what- 
soever. The  investigations  of  the  mechanists  and  the  monists 
throw  a  very  disturbing  light  on  Nature  (Loeb;  Crile; 
Snyder).  Excess,  we  know — or  its  equivalent,  strain — is 
destructive  to  any  organism,  and  the  dogmatic  moralist  may 
well  caution  against  it.  Yet  does  a  Creator  who  creates  by 
billions  and  allows  whole  races,  such  as  the  American  Indians, 
for  example,  to  disappear  almost  in  a  generation,  care  partic- 
ularly whether  this,  that  or  the  other  organism  is  broken  down 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE  161 

by  this,  that  or  the  other  strain  or  excess?  It  may  be  that 
excess  is  entirely  gratifying  to  Him  or  It — like  a  shell  maker 
pleased  with  the  explosive  power  of  his  shells.  What  is  one 
man,  one  organism,  one  race  of  organisms,  to  a  thing  that  pro- 
duces them  by  quintillions,  age  in  and  age  out?  So  a  con- 
ditioning law  of  equation  or  balance  which  compels  a  rough 
reciprocity  between  parts,  all  parts,  may  not  remove  the  effects 
of  or  the  necessity  for  strain  or  excess  in  the  relationship  of 
some  men  or  some  races,  or  all  men  and  all  races.  War  cer- 
tainly indicates  as  much,  and  all  the  plottings  and  struggles 
and  injustices  and  deaths  which  are  concomitants  if  not  essen- 
tials of  all  forms  of  progress.  Again,  what  we  might  consider 
necessary  in  the  way  of  equation  or  balance,  and  what  Nature 
would,  are  two  very  different  things.  Our  very  finite  minds  can 
see  but  finitely.  So  our  seemingly  necessary  limitations  on  in- 
dividuals may  be  accidental  and  trivial  and  so  detrimental  to 
the  larger  purposes  of  Nature,  which  must  betimes  sweep  them 
away  with  huge  murderous  wars  or  movements  and  so  restore 
the  changeful  balance  which  she  must  keep  in  ways  different 
from  the  minor  arrangements  which  spring  up  here. 

Even  now  Nature  may  be  constructing  individuals  and  forces 
which  will  completely  undo,  or  at  least  enlarge,  our  theories 
of  individual  limitations  and  powers.  We  do  not  as  yet  know 
what  Nature  is  seeking;  through  man,  if  anything — certainly 
not  his  immortality;  there  is  no  evidence  as  to  that — nor  can 
we  guess  how  she  is  seeking  it.  One  thing  we  do  know:  our 
impulses  do  not  always  accord  with  moral  or  religious  law, 
the  so-called  will  of  the  Creator  here  on  earth,  and  yet  our 
impulses  are  assuredly  provided  us  by  a  Creator,  if  no  more 
than  the  mechanistic  one  of  the  chemists  and  physicists.  We 
do  not  compound  ourselves.  We  cannot  always  by  any  means 
control  the  impulses  of  our  compounds.  Only  the  warring, 
frustrating  impulses  of  other  compounds  (or  individuals  or 
forces,  social  opinion  being  a  phase  of  them)  do  that  for  us; 
hence  we  are  not  privileged  to  say  that  God,  or  the  Creator, 


1 62  EQUATION  INEVITABLE 

wishes  us  to  do  thus  and  so.  We  can  only  say  that  changing 
conditions  compel  us  to  or  prevent  us  from  doing  thus  and  so. 
Nature  may  wish  us  to  be  forceful  in  many  strange  ways  in 
order  that  we  may  contest,  bicker  with  other  things  equally 
forceful  in  other  ways  (all  created  by  Her)  so  that  out  of  the 
contest  such  as  we  see  may  come  something  which  we  can  never 
see.  Who  knows? 

In  other  words,  all  we  can  say  is  that  Nature  has  supplied 
us  with  certain  forces  or  chemic  tendencies  and  responses, 
and  has  also  provided  (rather  roughly  in  certain  instances) 
the  checks  and  balances  which  govern  the  same.  Our  puny 
strengths  will  permit  us  to  do  only  so  much;  no  more.  That 
these  strengths  are  being  enlarged  from  time  to  time  is  rather 
obvious  (consider  a  man  like  John  D.  Rockefeller,  or  Napo- 
leon, and  an  ape).  At  the  same  time  the  limitations  essential 
to  balance,  reciprocity,  part  with  part  and  force  with  force,  are 
apparently  never  set  aside  entirely.  Both  Rockefeller  and  Na- 
poleon find  themselves  decidedly  limited  in  their  powers,  com- 
pelled to  compromise  with  many  things  in  moving  to  attain 
their  dreams.  And  their  wishes  in  the  main  have  far  tran- 
scended the  dictates  of  ethics,  as  these  have  hitherto  been  con- 
ceived. For  the  most  part  they  ignored  reported  or  written 
ethics,  sticking  by  seemingly  unethical  forces,  subtlety,  craft, 
the  power  to  do  all  that  their  strength  or  their  instincts  per- 
mitted them  to  do.  And  Nature  appears  to  have  no  objection 
to  them  or  their  results,  has  furthered  them  indeed,  nor  has  She 
apparently  to  millions  of  creatures  like  them  in  spirit,  or 
worse,  as  we  see  worse  here,  for  She  permits  their  appearance 
and  uses  the  result. 

Let  me  vary  the  argument  slightly. 

The  shelves  of  our  law  libraries  are  packed  to  suffocation 
and  moldering  to  decay  with  laws  ethically  intended  to 
govern  things  which  man  has  never  yet  been  able  to  govern 
entirely  and  probably  never  will  be,  although  the  instinct  so  to 
legislate  probably  conforms  to  the  mechanistic  instinct  for 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE  163 

balance  and  proportion  in  all  things.  In  England  they  hung 
men  for  sheep-stealing  a  few  hundred  years  ago,  and  yet 
sheep  were  and  still  are  stolen  in  England.  It  is  death  to  kill 
your  neighbor,  and  yet  when  did  man  ever  cease  killing  his 
neighbor?  Is  it  not  as  often  and  as  indifferently  done  to-day 
as  ever?  It  means  from  one  to  twenty  years  in  the  penitentiary 
in  America  to  steal,  and  yet  men  steal.  It  is  written  that  one 
should  never  covet  his  neighbor's  wife  and  that  adultery  is  a 
crime,  yet  when  has  the  ultimate  conception  of  these  things 
been  more  than  a  dream?  Man,  or  at  least  a  part  of  him,  a 
fragment  of  the  chemical  whole  of  which  he  is  a  part  or  an 
expression,  wishes  and  writes  laws  to  confirm  these,  but  in 
spite  of  all  so-called  spiritual  instruction,  an  ordered  scheme 
of  spiritual  rewards  and  punishments,  he  is  still  not  chemically 
able  to  accommodate  himself  to  these  things — not  all  of  him, 
at  least.  Nature,  his  sheer,  rank  human  nature,  which  sinks 
deep  below  into  mechanistic,  chemical  and  physical  laws  and 
substances,  will  not  let  him.  Instead  he  resorts  to  subtlety, 
craft — a  very  unspiritual  but  plainly  natural  or  chemical 
thing.  The  fact  is  that  the  power  of  certain  individuals  to  do 
is  only  limited  by  the  power  of  certain  other  individuals 
to  resist,  and  their  natures  and  tendencies  are  by  no  means 
the  same.  Yet  this  squares  with  the  first  or  pyknotic  law  of 
energy,  as  laid  down  by  Vogt*  The  self-integrating  force  of 
one  individual  is  limited  by  the  self-integrating  force  of  all 
other  individuals;  which  is,  if  it  is  anything,  Newton's  law 
working  out  in  human  affairs.  There  is  a  rough  law  of  balance 
indicated  by  this  opposition  and  strain,  but  nothing  more. 

I  once  talked  with  a  discouraged,  or  let  us  say  pessimistic, 
humanitarian,  the  twenty  best  years  of  whose  life  had  been 
devoted  to  corrective  and  ameliorative  work  among  dependents 
and  defectives,  young  and  old,  criminals,  the  physically  under- 
mined and  the  insane.  This  man  had  worked  to  have  various 

*J.   C.  Vogt:     "The  Nature  of   Electricity  and   Magnetism  on 
the  Basis  of  a  Simplified  Conception  of  Substance." 


1 64  EQUATION  INEVITABLE 

laws  passed  in  various  States  which  would  tend  to  lessen  the 
brutality  of  their  treatment  and  also  to  bring  about  some 
method  whereby  their  self-reproduction  would  be  painlessly 
stopped.  His  idea,  after  twenty  years  of  experimenting,  was 
that  the  processes  by  which  the  criminal  and  defectives  gener- 
ally were  being  gathered  and  governed  and  improved,  however 
laudable  in  theory,  was  destined  to  eventually  prove  economic- 
ally impossible  and  so  shirked.  The  tares  were  too  many,  too 
elusive,  too  expensive  to  gather  and  govern.  "The  thing  can't 
be  done,"  I  remember  his  saying.  "As  society  is  at  present 
governed  or  constituted  something  which  is  by  no  means  hu- 
manitarian or  ideal  prevails,  and  in  spite  of  the  best  intentions 
of  idealists  or  philanthropists  you  have  the  enormous  toll  of 
inefficiency  and  nepotism  to  contend  with.  Always  the  old 
Adam  breaks  loose  somewhere,  and  by  the  time  you  have  in- 
vestigated and  reinvestigated  and  built  institutions  and  passed 
laws  and  elected  officials  the  thing  becomes  a  social  and  finan- 
cial burden  beyond  reckoning — lost,"  he  added,  "in  abstrusities 
and  bad  management.  Politicians  juggle  with  it,  and  newer 
reformers  or  reactionaries  undo  what  you  have  done.  Besides," 
he  concluded,  "normal,  healthy  men  and  women  do  not  appear 
to  be  able  to  concern  themselves  with  the  day-to-day  variations 
and  aberrations  of  dependent  defectives  and  criminal  types. 
You  have  the  spectacle  then  of  official  and  even  medical  neg- 
lect, brutality,  rotten  meat  being  served  to  criminals  or  those 
detained  or  cared  for — in  short,  all  the  horrors  that  spring  from 
some  curious  opposition  in  Nature  to  anything  which  is  not 
able  to  take  care  of  itself.  Her  plan  apparently  is  to  let  them 
die.  I  tell  you  that  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  strongest 
cannot  be  set  aside.  Any  attempt  to  do  so  merely  begets  a  vast 
tangle  of  effort  and  expense  which  results  in  the  final  opera- 
tion of  that  law  anyhow." 

My  own  observations  of  the  working  of  various  plans  and 
theories  calculated  to  improve  or  "save"  mankind  coincide  with 
this  and  suggest  to  me  the  conclusion  that  there  is,  on  the  one 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE  165 

hand,  inherent  in  the  chemic  impulses  and  appetites  of  life 
(which  man  does  not  create),  an  instinct  toward  individuality 
which  may  be  for  good  or  for  ill,  plus,  on  the  other  hand,  this 
law  of  balance  or  equation  but  over  which  neither  the  humani- 
tarian nor  the  idealist,  any  more  than  the  criminal  or  indiffer- 
ent or  self-seeking  realist,  has  any  control  whatever.  If  this 
were  not  true  there  would  be  no  explaining  such  strange  social 
developments  as  the  lusts  of  certain  individuals,  the  vast 
animal  hungers  and  abnormalities  which  seem  to  contradict 
any  possibility  of  an  exact  social  equation.  While  the  ascetic 
passions  and  self-sacrifice  of  such  men  as  St.  Francis,  Jesus, 
Buddha  and  the  like  may  belie  an  entirely  material  or  animal 
interpretation  of  this  very  material  scene,  the  more  material 
one  of  an  Alexander  VI.,  a  Medici,  a  Morgan  and  a  Gould  do 
suggest  that  an  equation  or  balance  between  the  types  is 
holding  in  Nature.  Men  do  fight  and  die  for  idealistic  or  moral 
beliefs  just  as  plainly  as  they  do  for  material  ends.  This 
would  indicate,  as  I  said  before,  a  desire  for  rough  balance  or 
equilibrium  in  Nature  between  the  starkest  extremes  of  its 
creative  impulses — equation,  equation.  Nothing  more  nor  less. 

But  a  God  directing  and  calling? 

Oh,  no;  not  that  necessarily,  but  a  condition  in  Nature  itself 
perhaps  which  will  not  permit  it  to  move  save  by  a  process 
of  checks  and  balances — variety  in  unity,  and  vice  versa. 

If  one  takes  no  more  varied  types  than  Christ  and  Nero,  or 
Alexander  VI.  and  St.  Francis,  one  sees  how  plain  this  is,  in 
so  far  as  our  earthly  state  is  concerned.  God,  or  Nature,  or 
Life,  permits  both,  creates  both.  In  these  examples  one  sees 
how  the  impulses  of  the  flesh  always  vary  and  how  difficult  it 
is,  where  millions  outrival  these  in  secret  tendencies  and  im- 
pulses, to  suggest  a  working  harmony;  and  yet  there  is  a  har- 
mony and  they  do  harmonize,  or,  by  triturating  the  one  the 
other  maintain  a  working  balance,  the  tendencies  of  the  one 
being  offset  by  those  of  the  other,  and  vice  versa. 

No  less  latitude,  perhaps,  could  or  would  serve  in  a  world 


i66  EQUATION  INEVITABLE 

or  a  universe  which  breeds  individuals  by  quadrillions,  momen- 
tarily perhaps,  and  which  conceals  or  contains  forces  of  whose 
impulses,  emotions,  necessities  we  know  nothing,  and  so  equa- 
tion is  and  can  be  the  only  answer.  What  can  we  know,  for 
instance,  of  the  impulses  or  morals  of  the  Sun,  whose  heat 
apparently  breeds  all  forms  of  life  we  know  here,  horrific  and 
otherwise?  And  yet  we  also  know  that  heat  is  balanced  by 
cold  in  the  universe;  light  by  no  light;  matter  by  force;  ten- 
derness by  savagery;  lust  by  asceticism;  love  by  hate;  and  so 
on  ad  infinitum.  No  thing  is  fixed.  All  tendencies  are  permit- 
ted apparently.  Only  a  balance  is  maintained. 

The  thing  which  the  evolutionist  has  discovered  and  put 
forward  with  considerable  enthusiasm  is  this:  that  life  in  every 
form  has  tended  to  evolve  from  the  simple  to  the  complex,, 
and  only  through  a  vast  complexity  or  organization  has  iti 
managed  to  attain  this  spectacle  of  things  which  we  call  life 
or  beauty — division  of  itself,  as  it  were.  The  complexity  of 
the  individual  thing  which  we  call  a  tree  or  a  flower  or  ani 
animal,  or,  if  you  please,  a  social  state  (and  indeed  those 
more  or  less  abstruse  things  which  we  know  as  arts  and^ 
sciences),  are  but  a  further  evolution  of  the  complexity  of  the: 
world  machine,  and  life  has  brought  them  about  and  apparently 
saved  them  to  the  world,  possibly  for  the  purpose  of  partial 
self-expression.  At  the  same  time  there  has  always  been 
involved  in  this  process  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  strongest 
or  temporarily  and  accidentally  most  favored,  a  process  which 
the  humanitarians  are  never  prone  to  accept  because  it  beliesi 
the  theory  of  saving  anything  except  by  a  compensative  con- 
dition of  slaughter  and  neglect  of  other  things  less  strong — or, ; 
as  the  phrase  has  it,  unfit  things.  In  the  theory  of  the  religion- 
ist and  the  moralist  the  horrific  processes  that  work  in  the  sea 
and  the  jungle,  and  other  unsocialized  and  enigmatic  phases  i 
of  imminent  life,  are  entirely  outside  the  scheme  of  a  just  and ! 
merciful  God  or  Creator,  not  countenanced  by  Him!  When 
His  will  is  known  and  His  suggestions  are  obeyed,  these  will 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE  167 

overcome  and  disappear!  Well,  this  may  be  true,  only  it 
does  not  appear  from  any  material  or  mental  examination  of 
the  scene. 

Even  now,  as  we  talk  of  sweeter  and  less  avid  processes 

which  might  be  brought  into  play  by  a  superior  power,  life  is 

maintaining  its  ancient  balance  of  evil  and  good,  or  extremities 

!  of  one  kind  balanced  against  extremities  of  another.     Even 

now,  under  the  very  noses  of  the  religionists  and  the  moralists, 

j  these  processes  are  at  work  and  show  no  sign  of  being  abated. 

For  every  neighborhood  of  taste  and  comfort,  witness  the  vast 

|  areas  of  poverty,  poor  taste,  neglect,  dull  thought,  inefficiency. 

j  For  every  comfortable  man  a  lean  one,  or  many.    For  every 

I  mind  of  the  first  order  a  million  of  a  weaker,  fumbling  charac- 

i  ter.    For  every  tender,  Christ-like  soul  how  many  of  another 

|  kind — avid,  selfish,  cruel,  hideous  almost!     Are  the  poor  gov- 

I.  erned  by  the  rich — and  well?    Do  the  shrewd  rule  the  ignorant, 

|  and  to  their  advantage?    Do  the  strong  control  the  weak,  and 

|  to  their  advantage?    Are  the  inefficient  well  or  badly  housed, 

well  or  badly  nourished,  neglected,  left  to  stew  in  their  own 

I  juice  of  misery  and  live  and  die  as  best  they  can,  or  are  they 

looked  after,  as  the  religionist  and  moralist  suggest  and  hope 

!  for?    Only  the  dull  or  dishonest  among  the  moralists  and  re- 

I  ligionists  can,  it  seems  to  me,  fail  to  perceive  or  dare  deny 

I  what  even  the  dull  or  the  ignorant  now  being  trampled  upon  do 

j  already  vaguely  perceive  and  understand. 

And  yet  behold!  the  song  of  ultimate  perfection  continues 
yearly,  from  century  to  century,  to  be  sung.  The  Divine,  far- 
off  event  (which,  if  anything,  is  Nirvana)  is  surely  coming.  A 
sweeter  and  less  avid  process  will  be  brought  into  play.  Man  is 
to  be  saved  from  hunger,  cold,  thirst,  lust,  undue  material  am- 
bition, by  telling  him  how  horrible  they  are  and  asking  him  to 
be  kind.  Well,  he  may  make  a  comfortable  social  organiza- 
tion for  himself  here  on  earth,  but  that  will  by  no  means  prove 
that  the  universe  or  God  is  moral.  For,  behold — man  himself 
is  superimposed  upon  other  forms  of  life,  a  ruthless  Lord  or 


1 68  EQUATION  INEVITABLE 

devil  to  them,  and  thrives  only  by  their  destruction.  Do  you 
suppose  the  ox,  the  hog,  the  horse,  the  fish,  or  any  of  the  multi- 
tude of  creatures  man  slays  or  enslaves  in  order  that  he  may  be 
comfortable  and  spiritually  at  rest,  could  be  made  to  look  upon 
him  as  tender,  merciful,  a  creature  necessarily  to  be  saved  to  a 
higher  spiritual  state — representing,  for  instance,  an  all-kind 
God?  I  doubt  it.  What  about  the  God  who  allows  their 
organization  and  so-called  right  to  life  to  be  disrupted  in  our 
favor?  Where  the  universal  harmony,  justice,  mercy  there? 
We  are  to  develop  a  social  organization  in  which  gentleness, 
mercy  and  harmony  will  prevail  among  us,  but  we  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  curb  the  efforts  or  aspirations  of  lesser  creatures,  even 
rival  nations — the  Indians,  say — in  the  same  direction.  In  the 
great  days  to  come  no  man  will  contest  with  his  neighbor, 
but  only  with  the  universe — which  of  course  raises  the  ques- 
tion of  why  fight  the  universe.  And  where  do  the  rights  of 
the  universe  come  in,  which  we  are  hoping  to  rob  to  our  own 
advantage  and  its  enslavement? 

Aside  from  the  confusion  involved  as  to  the  character  c* 
man  and  the  governing  forces  of  life,  there  is  no  quarrel  with 
a  portion  of  this  theory.  To  a  certain  extent  harmony,  or  r 
"dependent  equation,"  as  Spencer  was  pleased  to  term  it,  will 
always  be  attained  between  individuals  assembled  in  vast  num- 
bers on  earth  or  in  the  sea  perforce,  because  it  may  not  be  es- 
caped. If  one  reads  chemistry  and  physics  correctly  it  is  a 
condition  which  underlies  everything.  An  equation  between 
matter  and  force  and  the  elements  to  which  apparently  they 
give  rise,  must  be  struck,  a  balance  attained,  if  life  as  we  see 
it  is  to  appear  or  go  on.  The  slightest  disturbance  of  the  exist- 
ing equations  which  produce  life  as  we  see  it,  as  Loeb  and  Crile 
and  others  have  shown,  ends  in  monstrosities  or  confusion,  and 
life  as  we  know  it  ceases.  In  our  own  social  life,  if  equation 
did  not  hold,  internecine  contest  would  soon  decimate  and 
gradually  eliminate  the  vast  majority  of  us.  The  late  great 
war  indicated  as  much.  Indeed  there  is  scarcely  any  doubt 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE  169 

that  social  life  as  we  know  it  will  yet  need  to  be  organized 
upon  an  even  more  closely  balanced  scale  than  at  present,  since 
the  elements  and  powers  which  make  for  contest  and  self- 
defense  are  becoming-  more  numerous.  Hunger,  cold,  thirst  and 
many  other  ills  to  which  the  flesh  is  heir  may  yet  be  eliminated 
among  men,  or  the  individuals  of  one  dominant  state.  It  is 
now,  by  certain  orders  of  men  and  insects;  the  bee-hive  and  the 
ant-colony  offer  suggestions.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  the 
basic  elements  of  Nature  or  God,  or  man,  would  thereby  be 
changed.  Is  it  not  more  likely  that  here  and  now,  in  a  small 
way  and  for  the  time  being,  only  their  disruptive  as  opposed 
to  their  constructive  characteristics  are  restrained?  Such 
stabilized  centers  of  motion  do  occur  in  Nature  from  time  to 
time  in  small  ways  and  places.  All  human  and  animal  bodies, 
machines  and  forms  of  government  even,  are  illustrations  in 
point.  But  does  that  prove  or  augur  that  the  changeful  ele- 
mental conditions  everywhere  prevailing  outside  these  delicate 
arrangements  in  Nature  may  not  eventually  sweep  in  and  make 
6ver  that  which  has  been  established  here  into  such  a  condition 
as  we  find  in  the  sea,  for  instance,  where  life  insistently  and 
'apparently  mechanistically  preys  on  life?  Why  not?  The 
glory  of  pagan  life  and  art — were  they  saved?  Or  was  their 
knell  sounded  by  the  advent  of  Christianity? 

Many,  observing  only  the  satisfactory  results  of  harmony  or 
equation  or  balance,  and  entirely  failing  to  note  the  essential 
disharmonies  out  of  which  alone  harmonies  may  take  their 
rise,  have  assumed  the  existence  of  an  emasculate  God  whose 
virtues  are  all  negative,  ignoring  the  positive  horrors  by  which 
we  live  and  progress.  For  them  the  cataclysms  of  physics, 
the  fumbling  failures  of  biology,  are  meaningless,  if  they  exist 
at  all.  Yet  plainly  the  creative  force  is  neither  as  generous 
nor  as  amiable  as  they  think.  Rather,  brilliant  as  is  all  this 
evolutionary  process,  and  it  reveals  startling  harmonies,  beau- 
ties and  seeming  intelligence,  it  still  only  argues  some  such 
fumbling  hit-or-miss  mechanistic  scheme  as  the  chemists  and 


1 70  EQUATION  INEVITABLE 

physicists  are  beginning  to  outline  and  which  allows  for  far 
more  latitude  in  morals  and  conduct,  as  well  as  invention  and 
discovery  even,  than  the  religionist  has  hitherto  been  willing 
to  grant.  The  only  one  who  appears  to  sense  the  true  process 
or  processes  of  Nature  is  the  mechanistic  chemist  or  physicist, 
who  does  not  deny  the  possibility  of  extremes  and  horrors  exist- 
ing in  the  Divine  mind  or  will  of  the  creative  impulse.  "Mur- 
der," say  these  scientific  seekers  after  truth,  or  at  least  their 
facts  point  to  this,  "is  a  disturbing  and  disrupting  process.  It 
destroys  the  equation  best  expressed  in  'Live  and  let  live.'  It 
affects  individual  peace.  If  you  do  so  unto  others  they  will  do 
the  same  unto  you.  Chemically  and  physically,  according  to 
the  law  of  reaction  or  equation,  they  cannot  very  well  avoid 
it.  Therefore  do  not  murder."  Yet  where  is  there  any  Divine 
command  in  that?  Is  it  not  rather  a  simple  and  easily  under- 
standable interpretation  of  a  very  obvious  and  inescapable 
law  of  equation,  under  which  nevertheless,  so  roughly  is  this 
law  adjusted  and  so  casually  does  it  work,  murder  and  many 
other  forms  of  non-equation  may  and  do  take  their  rise  and 
do  persist?  If  that  is  God  or  Good,  then  God  permits  murder, 
repays  with  murder,  or  asks  you  to  be  the  judge  as  to  whether 
you  will  tolerate  murder  in  your  State.  Rather,  to  the  physicist 
and  chemist,  it  appears  to  be  not  so  much  a  Divine  command 
as  an  accidental  and  inescapable  condition  of  equation. 

We  are  told,  by  way  of  dogmatic  moral  comfort,  that  man 
has  achieved  somewhat  that  the  animals  have  not,  and  that 
therefore  he  is  superior.  But  also,  as  is  now  becoming  per- 
fectly plajn,  he  has  been  able  to  discover  and  perpetuate  for 
his  own  satisfaction  crimes  and  iniquities  for  which  no  animal 
apparently  within  its  small  range  of  instinct  or  mechanistic  con- 
trol has  the  skill.  Nature  makes  both,  yet  she  does  not,  or 
cannot,  or  at  least  has  not,  made  the  animals  as  delicately  and 
resourcefully  evil  in  some  things  as  is  man.  That  is  why  he  is 
able  to  dominate  them.  In  one  way,  then,  man  is  worse  than 
the  animals,  and  in  another  better— a  balance  presumably  in 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE  171 

the  favor  of  man,  though  not  necessarily  so.  The  truth  is  that 
most  of  the  ways  wherein  man  has  been  differentiated  from 
the  animals  by  forces  over  which  he  has  no  control  concern 
not  ethics,  as  we  understand  and  act  upon  them,  but  mechani- 
cal articulations  and  utilitarian  comforts,  the  construction  and 
normal  use  of  which  lie  entirely  apart  from  the  realm  of  ethics. 
There  is  nothing  either  moral  or  immoral  in  the  development 
and  use  or  non-use  of  steam,  electricity,  plumbing,  the  tractor 
engine,  automobiles  and  so  on.  They  are  mechanistic  and  non- 
moral.  Thus  we  have  developed  architecture,  machinery  and 
the  arts.  It  is  true  that  in  so  far  as  man  himself  is  concerned 
these  are  helpful  to  him  in  his  mass  phase  and  provide  a 
larger  freedom,  which  has  resulted  in  a  large  experience,  hence 
intelligence  or  comprehension  in  every  direction.  Yet  have 
they  improved  his  morals?  Or  lowered  them?  Who  would 
say  so?  Yet  perceiving  this  development  or  change,  and,  more 
faintly,  the  need  of  balance  and  equation  which  runs  through 
all  and  underlies  all,  man  has  set  about  the  task  of  writing 
about  it,  framing  the  inescapable  equational  laws  which  all 
changes  suggest  and  compel  into  definite  unbreakable  com- 
mands from  a  definite  God,  singing  songs  about  Him,  painting 
pictures  of  Him,  and  directing  attention  to  what  man  has  ig- 
norantly  assumed  to  be  a  universal  source  of  supply  which  will 
or  should  permit  the  greatest  possible  number  to  live  under 
some  such  scheme  of  equation  as  is  here  suggested.  Unfortu- 
nately this  has  not  been  proved  as  yet,  and  at  any  rate  it  is 
not  the  same  as  the  presumably  provable  scheme  of  moral 
order  which  has  been  foisted  upon  man  by  the  dull,  designing 
or  poetically  enthusiastic  of  all  ages,  and  which  involves  the 
laying  aside  of  nearly  every  forceful,  vigorous,  natural,  or 
human  or  pagan,  attribute.  Quite  the  contrary. 

In  this  connection  I  should  like  to  reiterate  that  to  the 
Christian  and  other  metaphysical  idealists  neither  dishonesty 
nor  vice  nor  any  crime  is  contemplated  by  God,  and  therefore 
should  not  exist,  any  more  than  any  other  variation  from  that 


*72  EQUATION  INEVITABLE 

perfect  state,  best  indicated  perhaps  by  what  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments forbid  and  the  Beatitudes  imply.  God  does  not 
will  them.  He  personally  resents  and  will  punish  their  appear- 
ance. The  first  part  of  this  (i.  e.,  that  He  does  not  will  them) 
might  be  accepted  as  true  if  the  fact  that  he  permits  them,  or  at 
least  that  they  are,  in  spite  of  Him,  not  denied.  But  of  course 
religion,  as  all  those  who  philosophically  struggle  with  life 
now  know  or  should,  is  an  abstraction,  an  ideal,  whose 
dogmas  can  only  in  part  be  approximated  in  life.  For  life,  as 
we  nearly  all  know  by  now  or  should,  is  a  shifty  and  evasive 
mechanism,  chemic  in  part  at  least,  and  material  and  inscru- 
table, with  which  the  abstractions  of  the  religionist  have  little 
if  anything  in  common.  The  best  that  religion  and  ethics 
have  so  far  done  is  to  take  credit  for  the  inherent  and  necessary 
tendency  to  compromise  which  has  previously  been  indicated 
and  which  is  manifested  by  all  phases  of  natural  energy,  as 
much  by  that  shown  in  our  body  politic  as  anywhere  else.  In- 
deed, the  very  best  that  religion  can  show  is  no  better  than  that 
which  life,  or  Nature  Herself,  could  and  did  long  before  any 
religion  appeared,  namely,  a  rough  equation,  a  balance  struck; 
so  that  if  a  man  had  done  a  consciously  wrong  thing  in  one 
place  he  was  chemically  or  emotionally  moved  to  do  a  right 
thing  in  another,  and  if  his  actions  were  bad  in  one  way  it 
might  be  that  he  was  compelled  by  forces  outside  his  control 
to  counterbalance  them  by  good  ones  in  another.  All  animal 
forms  above  those  merely  mechanistic  or  tropic  (those  gov- 
erned by  tropisms  of  various  kinds)  appear  to  display  most  of 
the  virtues  exercised  by  humans — the  care  of  their  young,  for 
instance,  distress  at  their  loss,  loyalty,  ability  to  organize  and 
so  observe  group  laws;  characteristics  celebrated  by  man, 
where  exercised  by  him,  as  virtues,  beatitudes  and  what  not 
else.  Yet  these  lower  forms  cannot  possibly  know  of  religious 
or  moral  precepts  in  any  revealed  or  instructed  sense,  via  a 
Messiah  or  Redeemer.  Instincts  or  tropisms  as  developed  and 
verified  by  oppositions  or  aids  (accidental  or  otherwise) —once 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE  173 

more  the  law  of  balance  or  equation — appear  to  have  been  their 
sole  guides.  Hence  to  the  religionist  and  moralist,  thus  far  at 
least,  they  have  been  beyond  the  pale  of  ethical  consideration, 
things  almost  beyond  the  willing,  and  so  beyond  the  care,  of 
the  Creator  Himself.  An  especial  opponent  of  God  or  Good 
had  to  be  devised  in  order  to  take  care  of  them.  And  yet  are 
they  not  an  excellent  illustration  of  this  same  creative  and 
governing  force  in  Nature  which,  while  apparently  seeking 
variety  in  unity,  is  itself  subject  to  a  law  of  balance  or  harmony 
as  well  as  one  of  disharmony  or  change,  and  this  without  any 
evidence  self-conscious  on  its  part?  At  least  the  investigations 
of  the  chemists  and  the  physicists  thus  far  appear  to  indicate 
as  much.  "Vengeance  is  mine"  declared  the  old  Hebraic 
Jahveh,  and  by  that  very  assertion  he  admitted  that  he  did 
not  expect  to  establish  the  abstractions  of  right,  truth,  justice 
and  mercy  on  earth  but  rather,  since  he  could  not,  he  would  at 
least  attempt  to  strike  a  balance  and  would  exact,  in  the  form 
of  pain  or  disaster,  repayment  for  things  done  in  opposition  to 
his  code. 

Well,  that  requires  no  Sinaitic  command  or  religious  law  to 
make  it  true.  It  is  not  a  matter  for  great  churches  and  con- 
fessionals and  pence  and  genuflections — or  is  it?  It  is  true, 
whether  God  or  Moses  or  any  one  else  ever  said  so  or  not.  It 
is  a  material  and  an  economic  fact  as  well  as  a  chemic  or 
psychic  law.  If  you  wish  to  glorify  God  or  Nature  for  that, 
well  and  good.  Your  mood  may  be  admirable  or  interesting,  if 
not  exactly  necessary.  But  certainly,  whether  one  admits  the 
existence  of  a  self-willing  Creator  or  not,  it  is  too  much  to  say 
that  man  obtains  exact  justice  or  that  an  exact  return  is  made 
anywhere  for  energies  expended,  ideals  struggled  for,  efforts, 
good,  bad  or  indifferent,  made.  We  know  that  is  not  true.  Nor 
is  it  true  that  there  is  not  a  counter  impulse  to  withhold  it. 
There  is.  And  men,  fellow-units  in  the  great  self-balancing  cos- 
mos, all  too  frequently  reflect  that  impulse.  Man  is  no  more 
essentially  just  than  he  is  unjust.  He  is  an  impulse,  a  will  to 


I74  EQUATION  INEVITABLE 

live,  a  sharply  reflected  chemical  and  physical  impulse  in  Na- 
ture, which  acts  or  reacts  as  the  nature  of  other  chemical  and 
physical  stimuli  in  immediate  contact  with  him  suggests  or  com- 
pels, and  which  same  may  be  by  no  means  as  moral  as  we  think. 
Man,  as  a  representation  of  chemical  and  physical  impulses 
coming  from  somewhere,  has  an  innate  desire  for  power  for  ex- 
treme movement  for  himself;  but  so  have  all  other  mechanical 
or  physical  representations  of  that  impulse.  And  it  is  but  the 
balancing  pressure  of  his  fellows  which  keeps  him  in  position 
at  or  near  a  median  line.  If  you  examine  him  carefully  you 
will  find  that  in  the  main  he  desires  so-called  "justice"  for 
himself  only,  a  fair  balance  for  himself,  liberty  for  himself,  or 
that  which  is  related  to  him  via  pleasure  or  profit,  and  so 
on  ad  infimtum.  At  the  same  time  he  is  a  slave,  a  tool,  a 
medium  for  something,  an  intruded  if  not  self-intruding,  self- 
seeking  insect,  but  without  power  to  control  or  fend  against 
major  impulses  and  powers.  Still,  between  man  and  man,  tribe 
and  tribe,  nation  and  nation,  there  are  these  necessary  equa- 
tions or  balances  plus  their  internal  hopes  or  chemic  tendencies, 
each  one  for  himself,  to  change  and  achieve;  yet  the  same  being 
but  roughly  worked  out;  on  the  one  hand  to  balance  or  equa- 
tion in  favor  of  all  the  others,  on  the  other  hand  to  supremacy 
or  extreme  liberty  of  movement  for  each.  Where  only  failure 
is  achieved  there  is  either  a  lull,  temporary  only,  or  a  storm 
soon  or  late  (revolution),  or  periods  of  horror  in  which  chaos 
rules,  or  peace  in  which  nothing  is  achieved.  The  world  is 
sad  over  its  inability  to  obtain  freedom,  great  scope  of  emotion, 
for  itself,  or  gleeful  because  of  its  triumph  in  this  direction. 
But  all  the  time  it  is  struggling  and  maintaining  but  a  rough 
and  in  the  main  brief  balance,  part  with  part  or  unit  with  unit. 
One  might  go  on  indefinitely  contemplating  other  phases  of 
this  same  equational  law,  its  relation  to  love  of  parents,  love 
of  country,  love  of  home,  love  of  one's  neighbor,  love  of  this, 
love  of  that.  Are  not  all  of  these  held  up  as  duties,  virtues, 
perfections  even  Sinaitic  commands,  as  in  "Honor  thy  father 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE  175 

and  thy  mother,"  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  and  inwardly  we 
know  that  this  is  a  matter  of  equation  or  balance  and  can- 
not absolutely  as  a  commandment  from  on  high  exist  where 
no  reasonable  return  in  kind  is  predicated.  What,  love  a 
shameless,  brutal,  unparental  or  non-filial  father  or  mother, 
son  or  daughter,  in  whom,  let  us  say,  exists  not  one  redeeming 
trait  or  quality  of  all  that  we  consider  essential  to  or  charac- 
teristic of  those  states?  It  is  not  chemically  therefore  not  hu- 
manly possible.  What  is  meant  is  that  it  is  not  only  possible 
but  natural  to  make  a  reasonable  return  where  affection,  kind- 
ness or  care  has  been  extended.  Now  while  it  is  entirely  con- 
ceivable that  one  might  love  one  who  was  cruel  to  oneself  and 
generous  to  others,  or  generous  to  oneself  and  cruel  to  others, 
who  in  some  way  or  some  one  direction  fulfilled  some  phases  of 
balance  or  equation,  in  however  weak  or  impossible  a  way,  still 
one  could  not  possibly  love  one  who  was  in  no  wise  kind  or 
generous  to  any  one,  a  thing  without  reciprocal  or  balancing  re- 
lations in  some  direction.  The  law  of  balance  or  equation 
which  governs  in  all  processes,  even  thought,  will  not  permit  it. 
There  must  be  something  given  in  some  way,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, before  anything  can  be  returned  or  evolved,  even  in 
thought.  And  if  one  reverses  the  picture  and  attempts  to  con- 
ceive of  hating  some  one  or  thing  equationally  just,  fair  or 
balanced,  not  attempting  to  take  from  any  one  or  thing  too 
much  and  not  withholding  from  any  one  or  thing  that  which  is 
equationally  his,  it  is  quite  as  psychically  impossible.  One 
cannot  cerebrate  inimically  toward  that  person  or  thing  as 
being  evil,  reprehensible  or  what  not.  It  cannot  be  done. 
Sometimes,  where  by  reason  of  plenty  or  inherent  weakness 
of  mind  or  force,  or  carelessness  of  thought  or  interest,  an  in- 
dividual is  in  any  way  indifferent  to  a  "reasonable"  or  balanced 
return  to  himself  for  effort  made,  labor  given,  thought  expended 
and  what  not,  and  where  this  results  in  no  injury  to  himself  or 
others,  it  is  entirely  possible  to  look  upon  him  with  indifference 
or  as  a  fool,  or  as  one  who  is  weak-minded  or  not  capable  of 


I76  EQUATION  INEVITABLE 

balancing  himself  against  the  shrewd  and  self-interested  minds 
of  others.  But  such  indifference  or  lack  of  self-interest  would 
not  indicate  that  one  looked  upon  him  as  being  evil,  scarcely 
even  a  discreditable  force,  save  possibly  where  his  operations, 
or  lack  of  them,  affected  the  interests  or  rights  or  privileges  of 
another  or  others. 

Not  love  of  God,  then,  it  would  seem,  nor  fear  of  God,  al- 
though these  abstractions  have  come  to  be  real  enough  to  some 
minds,  prevents  one  individual  from  overriding  the  dreams  and 
hopes  of  his  neighbor,  but  fear  of  retaliation  which  his  selfish- 
ness might  produce.  "Thou  shalt  not"  springs  plainly  from 
"Thou  hadst  best  not,  it  is  dangerous,"  to  which  might  be 
added  the  strangest  quality  of  all,  the  tendency  in  large  or 
small  bodies  or  masses  to  quiescence,  the  love  of  peace,  or  in- 
ertia. Our  evoluted  mechanistic  chemism  has  become  so  dif- 
fused or  varied  that  we  may  even  now  speak  of  such  intangible 
and  yet  vital  forces  as  love  of  the  fixed  scene,  which  appears  to 
be  little  more  than  a  reflected  form  of  helio,  or  ego,  or  some- 
other  form  of  tropism,  the  inherent  power  in  everything  to  at- 
tract something  to  itself  and  so  maintain  itself,  for  the  time 
being  anyhow.  That  things  are  inclined  to  a  static  or  inert 
state  or  to  congeal  and  so  stratify  and  endure  in  that  form 
(Nirvana?)  is  as  true  as  that  they  must  change;  and,  under 
certain  conditions,  Nature  seems  to  abhor  too  much  speed,  as 
too  little. 

Is  there  anywhere  in  this  to  be  found  that  universal  right, 
truth,  justice,  mercy,  as  we  have  hitherto  deemed  it  or  them  to 
be  or  exist?  Perhaps  not,  but  it  is  all  of  so-called  right,  truth, 
mercy  or  justice,  universal  or  otherwise,  that  we  will  ever 
know,  all  of  it  that  is  involved  with  life.  Does  this,  by  any 
chance,  contain  truth?  Yes,  indeed,  it  is  truth,  for  it  is  a 
fact.  Is  it  right?  Well,  for  life  as  we  find  it  conditioned 
it  is  apparently  the  only  way.  Who  can  suggest  a  better? 
Should  the  fact  that  we  find  ourselves  thus  conditioned, 
confronted  by  Nature  in  all  Her  complexity  and  with 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE  177 

only  this  necessity  for  equation  to  fall  back  on,  disconcert  or 
dishearten  us?  Need  it  or  must  it  take  the  savor  out  of  life? 
No;  not,  at  least,  in  my  judgment.  Life  in  its  most  terrible  as 
well  as  its  most  halcyon  aspects  is  at  once  an  enticing  and  a 
fit  game.  It  seems  well  enough  suited  to  our  capacities,  and 
we  to  it,  since  essentially  we  are  of  it — it,  in  fact.  At  least  it 
leaves  or  provides  us  much  to  strive  for,  and  strife  is  the  only 
key  to  knowledge  or  sensation  and  life  that  we  have.  Abstrac- 
tions and  theories  are  good  as  games  at  which  the  human  mind 
may  play  if  it  chooses,  and  whenever  life  becomes  too  severe  for 
any  group  or  part  of  it  it  is  easy  enough  to  invent  a  theory  or 
abstraction  which  will  then  make  it  seem  different.  And  this 
is  almost  invariably  done,  as  witness  all  the  impossible  re- 
ligions and  theories  that  at  one  time  and  another  have  filled 
the  world.  Like  chess  or  checkers,  they  furnish  a  diversion 
or  relief  to  life-weary  minds.  If  you  have  nothing  better  to  do 
even  a  religion  may  be  worth  while.  At  worst  it  can  only  nar- 
row your  vision,  and  if  that  is  a  comfort — well,  it  is  a  comfort, 
but  you  do  not  thus  escape  the  essential  facts  of  life.  You 
merely  invent  a  shield  against  their  too-sharp  blows.  Regard- 
less of  whatever  dogmatic  moralities  may  have  been  dreamed, 
or  yet  may  be,  or  attempted,  life  is  still  avid,  treacherous,  as- 
tounding. Our  little  safety,  if  we  have  any,  lies  not  in  the  de- 
sires or  intentions  of  our  fellow-mortals,  good,  bad  or  indif- 
ferent, or  in  their  churches  or  creeds,  or  ours  really,  but  in  their 
limitations.  They  dare  not  do  unto  us  for  fear  of  what  we  will 
do  to  them,  or  of  what  the  machinery  of  equation  which  life 
has  set  up  or  is  conditioned  by  and  now  operates,  will  do  to 
them.  All  else  is  a  poet's  dream. 

What,  then,  shall  man  do?  Weep  for  that?  Shall  he  despair 
and  call  life  a  failure  and  a  torment?  Shall  he  say  that  it  is 
limited,  that  there  is  no  opportunity  for  progress,  or  that  the 
sweetness  of  those  things  defined  as  love,  charity,  mercy,  neigh- 
borliness  and  race  sociability  are  by  such  a  governing  condition 
destroyed?  Not  at  all.  Wherein  is  the  temperament  of  Na- 


i78  EQUATION  INEVITABLE 

ture  Herself,  Her  sweetness,  if  such  there  be;  Her  romance,  if 
such  there  be;  Her  beauty,  if  such  there  be,  altered  by  this? 
Life  is  as  it  is — active,  dancing,  changeful,  beautiful,  at  once 
brutal  and  tender — regardless  of  how  our  theories  would  seek 
to  make  it  seem,  and  though  it  does  as  it  chooses  at 
times,  or  appears  to,  and  invents  or  assumes  vari- 
ous guises  of  perfection,  it  is  as  it  has  always  been, 
both  good  and  bad,  yet  held  in  a  kind  of  equational  vise  or 
harmony — neither  too  good  nor  too  bad — or  we  would  not  now 
be  here  at  all,  any  of  us,  to  tell  the  tale.  As  it  is,  and  well 
within  its  equational  swing  or  law,  there  is  room  for  the  will  to 
superiority  in  the  super-man  as  well  as  the  trembling  fears  of 
the  least  of  created  creatures.  Nor  is  it  impossible  for  man, 
with  his  puny  strength  or  with  such  force  as  he  may  gather, 
to  attempt  to  upset  this  very  equation  and  so  rule  all:  or,  on 
the  contrary,  choose  to  live  in  sweetest  peace  with  his  neigh- 
bor, if  he  can.  He  may,  and  great  will  be  the  wonder  and 
charm  of  his  existence  if  he  no  more  than  try.  But  that  he 
should  succeed  in  permanently  so  doing  is  not  within  his 
scope  unless  he  should  grow  to  be  the  universe  itself.  On  the 
other  hand,  under  this  same  controlling  equation,  a  man  may 
be  a  Colossus  and  bestride  the  world  without  upsetting  the 
equation  ultimately.  Like  Alexander,  he  may  sigh  for  more 
worlds  to  conquer;  or,  like  Hannibal,  take  refuge  in  despair  and 
death.  Or,  better  yet,  like  some  forceful  and  yet  humble  la- 
borer at  some  small  task,  he  may  seek  to  hide  himself  away  in 
some  simple  peaceful  realm,  free  of  the  storms  which  rock 
these  greater  worlds,  and  still  be  secure  in  one  of  those  minor 
equilibriums  which  in  the  shadow  of  some  of  the  greater  ones 
are  always  holding  somewhere  in  part.  For,  roughly,  equa- 
tion is  always  holding  in  one  or  many  forms — dependent  equa- 
tions, which  consist  of  many,  many  equations  or  balances, 
joined  in  some  still  greater  one  or  synthesis — and  apparently 
always  will.  Who  shall  say?  To  our  present  senses  the  ulti- 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE  179 

mate  facts  of  life  are  not  altering;  although  that  is  not  for  petty 
man  to  know. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  should  say  that  the  condition  of  equa- 
tion which  is  everywhere  evident  does  not  deny  or  belie  any 
elements  of  softness,  color,  beauty  or  art  which  now  sweeten, 
or  seem,  to,  a  picture  which  must  seem  to  many  inherently 
grim.  God,  Good,  Nature,  Force,  is  not  now,  and  never  has 
been  apparently,  without  some  of  these  aspects  in  part,  nor 
bare  of  the  easing  limitations  indicated  by  the  Ten  Command- 
ments, the  Golden  Rule  and  the  Beatitudes.  For  before  these 
were  it  was,  and  if  they  are  or  ever  were  true  they  still  are  so, 
for  they  took  their  rise  out  of  it  and  so  must  be  and  remain  in 
it,  forever  and  ever,  emanations  or  adjustments  (equation,  no 
doubt)  suggested  by  the  desire  for  expression  on  the  part  of 
the  cosmos  as  a  whole.  Yet  the  knowledge  that  they  are  the 
result  of  a  "condition  or  equation  which  the  universe,  the  life 
force  itself,  cannot  escape,  is  or  should  be  most  encouraging. 
Nature  must  let  many  things  live  in  reasonable  equation  or 
peace,  for  it  is  in  them  and  they  in  it.  "I  am  in  the  Father; 
the  Father  is  in  me." 

If,  then,  man  is  savage  he  is  also  tender,  inherently  so  ap- 
parently, for  by  what  measure  would  he  measure  savageness  if 
not  by  its  contrary?  And  if  he  is  avid,  centripetal,  individual, 
is  he  not  somewhat  of  their  contrary  also?  In  truth,  some- 
where in  the  scheme  of  things  is  implanted  a  love  of  beauty  and 
order  as  well  as  their  contraries,  which  can  only  find  expres- 
sion via  equation,  and  this  it  is,  chemical,  inherent  awareness 
of  it  no  doubt,  which  eases  the  ache  of  existence  for  us  all 
(God,  man,  devil).  For  if  life  loves  change,  movement,  differ- 
ence, contest,  it  also  plainly  loves  their  contraries,  for  these 
exist,  and  we  could  not  know  the  one  without  the  other.  Order 
exists  as  a  half  of  its  opposite,  disorder,  and  the  one  could  not 
well  be  without  the  other,  and  peace  exists,  if  at  all,  as  the 
complement  or  antithesis  of  what  is  not  peaceful.  Yet  through 
all  and  all,  and  in  all  and  all,  are  the  sting  and  gayety  of 


i8o  EQUATION  INEVITABLE 

change  and  the  consciousness  of  it,  and  these  remain,  possibly 
forever  and  ever,  outside  Nirvana,  which  Nature  may  never 
wish  to  see  or  know.  It  may  be  impossible  for  Her  to  die  or 
be  still. 

Equation,  then,  is  that  which  is  involved  in  the  lust  of  the 
lover  for  his  sweetheart,  and  her  acceptance;  the  husband  for 
his  wife,  and  her  faith;  the  mother  for  her  child,  and  its  love; 
the  citizen  for  his  neighbor;  the  individual  for  his  friend.  Art, 
the  love  of  life  for  itself,  is  nothing  more  than  a  synthesis  of 
many  equations  whereby  many  lovely  harmonies  and  their  op- 
posites  are  expressed  or  implied.  Hunger,  balanced  against 
satiation,  creates  more  beauty.  Life  builds  and  wills  far  be- 
yond the  ken  of  man  or  his  companion  animals,  and  all  that 
he  can  know  is  the  chemic  thrill  of  life,  its  joys,  the  necessity 
of  equation  and  so-called  fair  play,  or  rhythm  and  balance. 
For,  behold,  life  is  ever  dancing  and  does  not  will  to  be  still. 
Not  to  want  too  much,  because  one  cannot  get  too  much;  not 
to  seek  to  devour  the  whole  world,  because  one  cannot;  not  to 
threaten,  because  of  vanity  and  self-appreciation,  all  else  with 
extermination,  because  one  cannot  possibly  exterminate  all  else 
without  disturbing  the  general  balance  and  so  bring  the  weight, 
the  conditioning  and  crushing  force  of  equation  itself  upon 
oneself,  is  to  say  what  may  offend  the  individual  life-lover  but 
which  nevertheless  produces  the  only  condition  in  which  the 
general  totality  in  all  its  glittering  variety,  which  it  appears  to 
crave,  can  best  express  itself  outside  Nirvana.  And  this  it  is 
which  should  drive  the  fog  of  religious  theory  out  of  our  minds. 

For  why  pray  in  beggarly  fashion  for  that  which  will  be, 
whether  we  pray  or  not — which,  as  the  mechanists  believe  and 
show  cannot  escape  its  own  destiny?  Rather  sing  and  be  joy- 
ful, I  should  say,  for  one's  unescapable  share  in  so  great  a 
spectacle.  The  game  is  open,  free,  a  thrashing,  glorious  scene. 
Our  God,  if  we  have  one,  is  not  a  namby-pamby,  milk-and- 
water  solution,  suitable  for  the  stomachs  and  optics  of  still  more 
namby-pamby  men,  but  a  vast  somewhat  which  offers  a  splen- 


EQUATION  INEVITABLE  181 

did  universe-eating  career  to  the  giant,  if  he  wills,  an  opportu- 
nity to  thrive  and  grow  to  even  the  most  spindling  of  beginners. 
Our  God,  if  we  have  one,  is  a  vast  somewhat  too  great  for  the 
perception  or  understanding  or  destruction  or  solution  of  any 
minor  portion  of  Him,  such  as  we  are.  He  is  a  creator  of  specta- 
cles, a  slinger  of  thunder-bolts,  a  breather  of  fire,  a  master  of 
cataclysm.  His,  or  Its,  least  breath  is  storm.  Its  sigh  is  earth- 
quake or  orbital  derangement.  No  attributes  such  as  man 
can  conceive  can  apply — neither  good  nor  evil,  virtue  or  its  op- 
posite— for  these  apply  only  as  mild  suggestions  at  moments  of 
equation  in  one  minor  part  of  the  great  whole  or  another. 
Our  God  is  tragedy  and  comedy,  terror  and  delight.  He  is 
limitless  opportunity  and  endless  opposition  and  destruction, 
for  His  way  is  extremes  in  equation,  and  nothing  more  and 
nothing  less. 

What  then?  Despair  over  that?  Is  there  not,  in  all  con- 
science, under  a  loose  equation  (loose  and  operative  only  in 
extremes)  room  for  all  the  lusts,  the  terrors,  the  wonders,  the 
simplicities  of  the  greatest  as  well  as  the  least?  Alexander 
may  yet  be  again,  or  the  devil  himself  in  all  his  power  and 
lurid  glory,  before  he  is  crushed  and  set  aside,  for  the  time 
being,  by  his  inherent  antithesis,  the  thing  which  is  not  devil. 

And  as  for  the  religionist,  may  not  Jesus,  St.  Francis,  St. 
Simon  Stylites  come  again?  Let  man  fight  for  their  return  if 
he  will.  Who  is  to  gainsay  him? — not  God,  Force,  the  Uni- 
versal Substance.  Obviously  it  does  not  care  how  it  expresses 
itself,  so  long  as  it  achieves  avid,  forceful,  artistic  expression. 


PHANTASMAGORIA. 


CHARACTERS: 


THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

BEAUTY 

AMBITION 

PITY 

LOVE 

HATE 

DESPAIR 

REASON 

HOPE 

FEAR 

GREED 

FIRST 

SECOND 

THIRD 

FOURTH 

FIFTH 

SIXTH 
SERAPHIM 
CHERUBIM 

Clouds  upon  clouds  of  birds,  snakes,  fish,  animals,  men,  flowers 
trees,  planets,  suns. 

SCENE  I— The  House  of  Birth 
SCENE  II— The  House  of  Life 
SCENE  III— The.  House  of  Death. 


-   POWERS  OF  DARKNESS 


182 


SCENE  I.    THE  HOUSE  OF  BIRTH 

SCENE :  Darkness  and  illimitable  space.  JEons  of  time,  as  meas- 
ured by  the  illusion  of  time,  elapse.  THE  LORD  OF  THE 
UNIVERSE,  as  force,  inert,  yet  all-in-all,  rests  quiescent.  A 
faint  pulsing  begins.  Without  thought  or  reason,  restless,  cha- 
otic, the  idea  of  separateness  and  individuality  generates — an 
insane  dream.  The  cloudy  length  of  a  giant  outlines  itself, 
reclining  in  endless  space.  It  appears  and  disappears,  now  a 
thigh,  now  an  arm,  only  to  fade  again.  The  vague  outlines  of 
a  brow  and  cheek  appear,  only  to  fade  again.  JEons  of  time 
elapse.  The  illusion  reasserts  itself.  Cloudy  fire-mists  pour 
from  his  nostrils.  Poles  of  light  erect  themselves  from  ma- 
terialized temples.  Blazing  suns  and  meteors  burst  forth  and 
swirl  about  his  head.  Strange  and  multitudinous  forms  mani- 
fest themselves — animals,  birds,  fishes,  horned  and  winged 
things.  They  appear  and  disappear,  as  thoughts  form  and 
fade.  He  is  blind,  aged,  insane.  He  erects  imaginary  titanic 
arms  and  rubs  his  changing,  stupendous  face  with  his  changing 
hands. 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  (He  sinks  back  wearily, 
all  but  the  outlines  of  his  head  disappearing.) 

BEAUTY   (a  thought) 

(Leaping,  pink-limbed  and  perfect,  from  his  brain,  a  figure 
of  delight.)  Lord,  thou  hast  created  me!  I  am  thy  perfect 
thought,  thy  happiest  illusion!  I  will  be  worshiped!  I  will 
be  worshiped!  (She  springs  sinuously  among  the  spinning, 
changing  spheres,  a  radiant  smile  upon  her  face,  her  arms 
tossed  upward  in  delight.) 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(Materializing  himself  fully,  a  paretic  smile  upon  his  lips. 
He  rubs  his  face  and  imagines  eyes,  giving  himself  sight,  and 
surveys  her  broodingly.)  Have  I  created  thee?  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho! 

183 


Ig4  PHANTASMAGORIA 

(He  rubs  his  flaming  hair.)  I  must  not  forget  thee.  I  must 
not  forget  thee!  Oh,  ho,  ho!  Thou  art  Beauty!  (His  expres- 
sion changes;  an  unimaginable  weariness  settles  upon  his  face, 
aged,  (Bonic.  He  frowns  and  leers  and  partly  fades,  re-estab- 
lishing himself  after  a  time.  As  he  does  so,  AMBITION1,  a 
sinister  thought,  club  in  hand  and  darkling  and  scowling,  a 
figure  of  terror,  leaps  from  his  eyes.) 
AMBITION 

(Brandishing  his  club.)    I  will  be  obeyed!    I  will  be  obeyed! 
Out  of  thy  terror,  Lord,  thou  hast  created  me!     War  and 
strife  will  I  have!    War!    War!     (He  struts  and  stares.) 
THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(The  darkling  mood  passing,  a  light  of  momentary  peace 
settling  on  his  face.  He  gazes  at  the  figure  tolerantly.)  Ha,ve 
I  created  thee?  Weary!  Weary!  I  am  weary!  (He  stretche" 
his  arms.)  But  stay!  I  am  lonely.  Be  thou  what  thou  ar  . 
(He  draws  himself  to  a  sitting  position,  all  the  height  and 
depth  of  space.) 

BEAUTY 

(Threading  a  necklace  of  suns.)     I  will  be  worshiped! 
will  be  worshiped!     (She  croons  joyously.) 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(His  mood  changing,  a  giant  despair  creeping  into  his  eyes.) 
Forever  and  ever!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Forever  and  ever!  It  is 
a  dream!  (He  staggers  to  his  feet,  the  great  shadowy  arm 
flailing  wildly.  As  he  does  so  he  imagines  Space  and  Time,  and 
begins  to  wander  down  their  lengths,  staggering  as  he  goes. 
From  his  brow  leap  HATE,  DESPAIR,  PITY,  HOPE,  FEAR, 
thoughts  all,  the  last  two  with  great  round  eyes  and  open 
mouths.  At  the  same  time  clouds  upon  clouds  of  unimaginable 
forms  and  characters,  previously  non-existent,  come  into  being, 
the  product  of  his  fancy.  Suns,  worlds,  fire-mists,  swarms  of 
birds,  snakes,  fishes,  animals  and  men  are  born,  strange  wraiths 
that  float  in  wreaths  about  him  and  traverse  all  immensity. 
They  circle,  murmur,  mutter,  cry.  The  avatars  of  men  come 


PHANTASMAGORIA  185 

forth,  Huge  forms  of  gas.  They  are  preceded  and  followed  by 
vast  clouds  of  thoughts  of  their  own — ravening,  embodied 
fancies  that  bicker  and  contest.  These  immense  companies 
and  semblances  appear  and  disappear,  as  the  primary  figure 
thinks  or  loses  memory  of  what  he  has  thought.  He  alternately 
laughs  and  groans,  maundering.) 

BEAUTY 

(Dancing  on  before.)    I  will  be  worshiped!     I  will  be  wor- 
shiped! 

AMBITION 

(Gathering  at  his  back  vast  clouds  of  restless,  threatening 

figures  like  himself.)    I  am  his  thought  of  strength!     I  am  his 

thought  of  power.     I  am  his  thought  of  rage!      I  am  his 

^  thought  of  contest!     Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!     Follow  me!     Follow 

j,me!     See,  we  will  sow  destruction!     We  will  spread  despair! 

We  will  slay!    We  will  burn!    Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho! 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(Wildly,  his  fancy  flaming  furiously.)     Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!     I 
1  am  (5bd!    I  am  that  I  am — all  in  all!    I  am  my  dream  of  my- 
self!    I  will  dream  me  dreams,  visions.    These  are  my  crea- 
tions, all !     (He  turns  and  surveys  his  endless  fancies  of  horror 
and  delight.)     Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!     Come,  Art!     Come,  Love! 
Come,  Hope!     Come,  Death!     Dream  as  I  dream!     Create 
^destiny,  suffer!     I  am  God!     I  cannot  die!     Insane!     Insane! 
Insane!    Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!     (He  shouts  in  agony,  then  joy,  then 
sobs,  staggering  as  he  does  so,  ending  in  a  gale  of  lunatic- 
laughter.) 

PITY 

(To  LOVE,  hovering  near.)     We  are  his  children;  and  we 
can  do  nothing? 

LOVE 
Nothing,  save  he  think  on  us. 

PITY 
(To  HOPE.;    Canst  thou  do  nothing? 


!86  PHANTASMAGORIA 

HOPE 
Nothing,  save  he  think  on  me  and  thee. 

HATE 

(Clasping  the  hand  of  DESPAIR.;  Come  aside.  Are  not 
we  his  thought  also?  What  have  we  in  common  with  them? 

DESPAIR    ' 

(Darkly.)  Nothing!  Nothing!  Yet  are  we  his  thought 
also,  but  not  of  them!  No,  no,  no!  He  should  sleep  again! 
He  should  sleep! 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(Staggering  and  writhing.)  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho! 
I  am  God!  I  dream  me  dreams!  I  build  me  endless  won- 
ders, endless  pleasures,  endless  horrors!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho! 
(He  staggers  madly  on.) 

BEAUTY 

Build  thou  me  temples  of  beauty,  Lord!  I  will  be  wor- 
shiped! I  will  be  worshiped! 

AMBITION 

Make  thou  me  worlds  and  legions!  Worlds!  Worlds!  And 
legions!  I  would  rule!  I  would  slay!  I  would  burn! 

LOVE 

Oh,  but  wilt  thou  make  flowers  and  vast  realms  of  quiet 
places,  Lord?  Or  but  little  valleys,  if  thou  wilt?  Make 
streams  and  pretty  shelters!  Give  not  all  to  Ambition,  Lord! 
Give  not  all  to  war! 

HATE 

(Springing  before  his  face.)  Make  thou  me  implements  of 
terror!  Create  thou  me  forms  of  horror,  of  evil!  Spin  thou 
me  dark  chains  and  darker  places!  Make  thou  tortures  of 
failure  and  regret,  Lord— tortures!  Tortures!  (He  glowers 
'about  him.) 

PITY 

Nay,  Lord,  let  not  all  be  of  horror  and  hate!  Think  thou 
on  me,  Lord,  of  sweet  pity  and  tender  things!  Or,  if  thou 


PHANTASMAGORIA  187 

canst  not,  think  thou  but  of  ways  that  I  may  heal  what  Hate 
will  destroy,  what  Ambition  would  crush.  Think  thou  thus, 
Lord!  I  am  a  thought  of  thine  also! 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 
(Wearily.)    Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!     (He  staggers  on.) 

FEAR 

Lord,  do  thou  protect  me!  Do  thou  conceal  me!  Forget  me 
not,  Lord!  Forget  me  not!  I  fear!  I  fear! 

DESPAIR 

Why  dost  thou  not  sleep,  Lord?  Of  what  avail  are  we,  thy 
fancies?  Oh,  why  dost  thou  not  sleep?  Sleep!  Sleep!  Sleep! 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(Staggering  on.)  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho! 
Space — Time — I  have  made  me  these!  Suns — Planets — I  have 
made  me  these!  Love — Hate — I  have  made  me  these!  Hope 
— Fear — I  have  made  me  these!  Beauty — I  have  made  me 
this!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  (He  staggers  on,  ges- 
ticulating and  Sighing  stupendously.) 

BEAUTY 
(Wildly.)    I  will  be  worshiped!     I  will  be  worshiped! 


SCENE  II:    THE  HOUSE  OF  LIFE. 

SCENE:  The  cloudy  realms  of  space.  At  a  point,  halls  of  illimit* 
able  and  indescribable  splendor,  the  colorings  of  the  dawn.  Be- 
yond, a  swirling  belt  of  suns  and  satellites  glittering  thinly 
against  the  dark.  Beyond  this,  in  measureless  nothingness,  the 
suggestion  of  other  clouds  of  suns  and  planets,  spinning.  At 
the  center,  the  Presence,  couched  upon  gold  and  porphyry,  high- 
piled,  cloud  on  cloud.  Poles  of  outpouring  thought,  great  flames, 
radiate  from  his  brows;  about  him  a  nimbus  of  fire.  He  is  now 
fully  self-materialised  and  concentrated,  but  sits  quiescent, 
weary,  lonely,  a  compendium  of  vagrom,  changeful,  insane 
emotions  and  ideas.  Immediately  before  him,  BEAUTY, 
LOVE,  PITY,  HOPE,  REASON— colorful  shadows  all— as 
well  as  beasts,  birds,  fishes,  reptiles,  flowers,  trees;  men  and 
women  in  cloudy,  wraith-like  masses.  Above  him,  immense  le- 
gions of  CHERUBIM  and  SERAPHIM,  figures  of  translucent 
light,  radiant,  choral.  In  the  background,  AMBITION;  about 
him  swirl,  darkling,  HATE,  FEAR,  GREED,  DESPAIR,  and 
behind  them,  cloud  upon  cloud,  sinister  figures,  emissaries, 
dreams,  the  darker  products  of  the  Lord's  fancy. 

SERAPHIM  AND  CHERUBIM 

(Fanning  with  glittering  wings.)  Hail,  our  Creator!  Hail, 
Lord!  Do  thou  remain  forever  in  thought  our  Creator,  our 
Thinker!  Blessed  be  thy  reality!  Hail!  Hail! 

BEAUTY 

(Surveying  from  a  glistering  footstool,  nearest  of  all  the 
swarming  universe.)  Am  I  not  beautiful,  Lord?  Am  I  not 
thy  thought  of  Beauty?  Art  thou  not  content  to  think  on  me, 
thy  first  thought?  And  shall  I  not  be  thy  last?  Thou  hast 
but  commanded,  and  they  worship  me!  Thou  but  thinkest, 
and  I  am  supernal  in  beauty!  (She  smiles.)  They  worship 
me!  They  worship  me  I 

1 86 


PHANTASMAGORIA  189 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 
(Broodingly.)     Sweet  thought — my  dearest  thought! 

AMBITION 

(Clanking  ponderous  armor,  a  cloudy  giant  in  moody  medi- 
tation.) We  wait!  We  wait!  He  thinks  not  on  us!  He 
thinks  not  on  us.  Now  are  his  thoughts  of  drooling  pleasure — • 
of  Beauty,  of  Hope,  Peace — pale  nothings  all — Seraphim  and 
Cherubim,  mere  fluttering  figures  of  light!  Beauty  reigns! 
Hope  and  Reason  and  Pity  are  at  her  feet!  See  how  the  uni- 
verse peoples  itself  with  these,  his  fancies!  He  dreams  but  fair 
dreams! 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(To  BEAUTY,  turning  slowly  and  viewing  complacently  the 
immensity  and  beauty  of  his  fancy.)  Art  thou  pleased,  then, 
with  what  I  have  made  for  thee?  See,  see — dreams,  dreams, 
sweet  dreams  all — mad  fancies  all — mad!  Mad!  That  which 
I  make  is  madness  all — disordered  dreams!  I  am  mad,  mad! 

BEAUTY 

Wondrous,  Lord,  of  whom  I  am  the  first!  Great  Creator! 
Thou  art  wonder  and  beauty  all.  Sweet  are  thy  dreams! 
Sweet  thy  madness!  Sweet  am  I!  But  sleep  no  more,  Lord! 
Dream  on.  It  is  sweet  to  be  worshiped  so!  I  would  be  wor- 
shiped! I  would  be  worshiped! 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

Sayest  thou  so,  perfect  thought?  It  is  sweet  madness? 
Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  A  thing  of  now,  and  then  no  longer!  Thou 
art  a  fair  dream,  a  dear  one,  but  nothing — nothing!  Is  not 
that  transcendant  sorrow — madness? 

BEAUTY 

(Caressingly.)  Oh,  think  not  so,  Lord!  Think  not  so1  A 
dear  dream!  A  wondrous  dream! 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(Darkly  and  broodingly.)  What  am  I?  What  art  thou? 
What  are  these?  (He  waves  a  vast  hand.)  What  it  all  is  I 


i9o  PHANTASMAGORIA 

cannot  think — or  why — or  whence — or  where.  I  dream  and 
sleep — I  sleep  and  dream!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho! 
A  dream!  A  dream!  Sayest  thou  a  sweet  dream?  A  sweet 
dream!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  I  have  lost  the  key!  I  have  lost  the 
key!  (He  laughs  loudly,  sadly.) 

AMBITION 

(In  the  background,  rumbling.)  He  has  lost  the  key!  He 
has  lost  the  key! 

BEAUTY 

A  sweet  dream,  Lord!  A  sweet  dream!  Sleep  no  more, 
Lord!  Sleep  no  more!  It  is  all  too  sweet!  Sleep  no  more! 
(She  smiles.) 

AMBITION 

(Restlessly.)  He  dreams  but  useless  things!  We  grow  to 
thin  nothings!  (He  clanks  his  armor  weakly.) 

PITY 

Think  kindly,  Lord!  Kind  and  tender  thoughts!  It  is 
best  ever! 

THE  POWERS  OF  DARKNESS 

(Rumbling.)  Hail!  Let  Hope  be  forgotten!  And  Love! 
And  Pity!  Hail! 

BEAUTY 

(Rising  and  laying  a  hand  upon  his  brow.)  Lord,  I  am  thy 
first-born.  After  me  came  these.  (She  motions  to  HOPE, 
PITY,  REASON.)  I  am  thy  first  thought,  thy  thought  of 
Beauty!  Say  it!  Remember  me!  Forget  me  not!  All  else 
avails  so  little!  And  think  thou  not  on  Ambition  or  Hate. 
They  would  destroy— even  me!  Even  me!  (She  smiles.) 

THE  POWERS  OF  DARKNESS 

(Thundering:)  Yea,  even  Beauty,  Lord!  What  is  Beauty 
to  thee? 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(Gazing  dully.)  Beauty!  Beauty!  Can  I  remember  thee 
always,  even  though  I  would?  Thine  eyes!  What  is  it  I 


PHANTASMAGORIA  191 

meant  by  thine  eyes?    (He  gazeo  into  them.)    Mad!     Mad! 
Mad! 

AMBITION 

(Angrily,  clanking  his  armor.)  He  drools  and  dreams!  Me, 
his  best  thought — his  greatest — he  forgets!  I  am  his  horror, 
his  strength,  his  despair,  his  power — yet  he  thinks  not  on  me! 
Beauty!  Beauty!  And  I  wait  in  shadow!  I,  his  rage — yet  he 
sleeps  in  vagrom  thoughts  of  beauty!  Awake,  Lord!  Forget 
these  pale  shadows!  Are  not  thy  darker  thoughts  better? 
Think  thou  on  me!  On  Power!  Come,  Hate!  Come,  Anger! 
Come,  Despair  Come,  Fear!  Sit  ye  all  with  me! 

FEAR 
Only  let  me  return  unto  thee,  Lord!    I  fear!    I  fear! 

BEAUTY 

(To  AMBITION,  angrily.)  And  if  he  thought  on  thee, 
what  then?  Storms,  horrors,  all  blackness  and  rage!  Thou 
art  such!  Is  not  Beauty  better? — this  light? — this  song? — 
these  Cherubim  and  Seraphim?  Wilt  thou  have  naught  but 
shadow?  Avaunt!  To  think  on  thee  is  death,  destruction,  the 
end  of  all!  Oh,  no,  Lord!  Oh,  no,  no,  no!  Put  them  all 
hence!  Think  thou  on  me!  Are  not  all  thy  fair  dreams,  in 
which  suns  cluster  and  lovely  forms  bud  forth,  more  to  thee 
than  these,  thy  darker?  (She  smiles  winningly.) 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 
(Heavily)    I  am  that  I  am! 

AMBITION 

(Fiercely  glowering  and  sulking.)  Yea;  Terror,  Might, 
Strength,  Death  thou  art!  Think  thou  on  me! 

BEAUTY 

Nay — Love,  Beauty,  All  Perfectness,  Light,  Joy,  Song — so 
art  thou,  and  so  only!  Think  thou  on  me,  Lord!  Think  thou 
on  me!  (She  smooths  his  hands.) 

HATE,  FEAR,  GREED,  DESPAIR 
(In  chorus.)    Think  thou  on  us!    Are  not  we  of  thee? 


I92  PHANTASMAGORIA 

LOVE,  PITY,  HOPE,  REASON 
(In  chorus.)    Think  thou  on  us!    Are  not  we  of  thee? 

CHERUBIM  AND  SERAPHIM 
Thou  everlasting  glory — Hail!    Hail! 

AMBITION 

(Angrily.)  Vanish,  vain  things!  Dream,  Lord,  no  more! 
(He  glowers  and  sulks.) 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(To  BEAUTY  sadly.)  I  know  not  whether  thou  art  best  or 
worst.  But  stay,  stay!  Stay  thou  with  me  but  yet  a  while! 
Let  me  not  forget  this  thing  that  thou  art — wonder,  light,  a 
glorious  dream!  (He  sighs.)  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Let  me  think 
no  more  of  horrors!  Of  that  I  am  aweary!  Mad!  Mad!  Mad! 
Yet  now  I  have  thee — thou  art  a  pleasant  thought,  thou  joyous 
dream  of  fair  things!  Beauty!  Beauty!  Oh,  Beauty!  (He 
smooths  her  cheek.) 

A  CLOUD  OF  SERAPHIM 

(Fluttering  nigh.)  He  dreams  of  Beauty!  We  will  not 
die!  Hail!  Hail! 

A  CLOUD  OF  CHERUBIM 
He  smiles  on  Beauty!  We  will  not  die!    Hail!    Hail 

AMBITION 

(A  hovering,  terrible  figure  in  the  gloom.)  He  rests  and 
drools!  All  is  light  and  song!  He  thinks  not  on  death! 

(The  shadows  recede  into  the  darkness,  to  all  but  nothing- 
ness; the  endless  legions  of  suns  twinkle;  the  clouds  of  CHE- 
RUBIM and  SERAPHIM  swirl  and  turn.) 


SCENE  III:    THE  HOUSE  OF  DEATH 

SCENE:  A  chamber  of  unimaginable  horrors,  vast,  murky,  in- 
volute, in  which  serpents  twist  and  writhe;  tortured  figures 
crawl  and  groan;  beasts  of  many  heads  and  paws  prowl  to  and 
fro,  and  all  slimy  odorous  forms  interlace  in  welters  and  sloughs 
and  draperies  and  festoons.  At  the  center,  the  Throne  of  the 
Lord,  a  mound  of  unclean  beasts  and  serpents,  hung  over  by 
clouds  of  evil  spirits;  his  present  embodied  thoughts.  At  his 
side,  huddled  in  despair,  faint,  pale  shadows  of  their  former 
selves,  the  thinnest  of  dreams— BEAUTY,  REASON,  PITY, 
HOPE,  LOVE.  Before  him  in  glowering  fullness,  grown  to 
vast  proportions,  AMBITION,  and  behind  him  the  legions  of 
his  fancy,  black  and  fulgurous,  drawn  close  about.  Insane, 
fevered,  maundering,  the  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE  bellows 
of  destruction. 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Death!  Death!  Death! 
Thou  dearest  death!  Bring  thou  me  heaps  of  dead — the  end- 
less slain!  Breed  winged  and  forked  things,  horrors  all! 
Bring  thou  me  shames,  despairs,  disasters,  with  which  to  tor- 
ture and  slay!  Go  forth!  Go  forth!  Sweep  thou  with  Hate, 
with  Rage,  with  Despair,  with  Fear!  Breed  me  vast  powers 
of  evil,  and  still  vaster!  Rank  thou  me  them  rank  on  rank — 
file  by  file!  (He  thinks  on  tortured  forms.)  Make  me  armies 
of  horrors,  of  woes,  of  immedicable  griefs!  (As  he  thinks, 
from  his  brain  leap  forth,  many-headed,  forked,  winged,  the 
first  six  Powers  of  Darkness,  and  after  them,  clawed  and 
winged  forces  of  ravening  aspect  and  disaster.) 

BEAUTY 

(Sadly,  in  a  thin  voice.)  Lord,  am  I  forgotten?  (He  makes 
no  answer.) 

193 


I94  PHANTASMAGORIA 

LOVE 

(In  a  thin  voice.)  Lord,  canst  them  no  longer  think  on  me?, 
(He  makes  no  answer.) 

HOPE 
(Weakly.)    Lord,  am  I  no  more  to  thee?    (No  answer.) 

PITY 
Canst  thou  not  remember  me,  Lord?    (No  answer.) 

REASON 
Lord,  am  I  as  nothing  to  thee  now?     (No  answer.) 

AMBITION 

(To  the  clouds  of  darkness  behind  him  as  the  first  of  the 
six  great  Powers  leap  forth.)  Join  them  thou!  Forth  1 

FIRST  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Hundred-headed,  winged  and  fanged,  leaping  from  the 
brain  of  the  Creator  at  illimitable  speed).  Hail!  I  go  to 
harry!  To  slay! 

SECOND  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Hundred-headed,  winged  and  fanged,  rushing  forth  at  il- 
limitable speed.)  Hail!  I  go  to  rack,  to  torture! 

THIRD  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Hundred-headed,  winged  and  fanged,  rushing  forth  at  il- 
limitable speed.)  Hail!  I  go  to  ravage!  To  gall!  To  flay! 

FOURTH  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Hundred-headed,  winged  and  fanged,  rushing  forth  at  il- 
limitable speed.)  Hail!  Where  Sorrow  is  not,  I  carry  it! 

FIFTH  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Hundred-headed,  winged  and  fanged,  rushing  forth  at  il- 
limitable speed.)  Hail!  Where  Happiness  is,  I  destroy  it! 

SIXTH  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Hundred-headed,  seven-horned,  winged  and  fanged,  rushing 
forth  at  illimitable  speed.)  Hail!  Hail!  Where  Peace  is,  and 
Love,  I  make  them  as  not!  (They  speed  to  his  right  hand  and 
to  his  h't,  above  and  beneath  him,  before  and  behind  him.) 


PHANTASMAGORIA  195 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

Forth!  Forth!  Fury  upon  fury!  Bring  me  masses  of  de- 
struction! Undo!  Undo!  Undo!  I  would  have  change! 
Death!  Woe!  Tears — bring  me  tears,  tears,  tears!  Wipe 
out  all  dreams!  Make  ashes  of  fancies!  Destroy!  Destroy! 
Destroy!  Let  all  be  of  horror,  of  death,  of  sorrow,  of  pain! 
Make  of  life  an  ending  in  misery!  Mad!  Mad!  I  am  mad! 
Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  (He  bellows  in  insane  rage.) 

AMBITION 

(Raveningly,  to  the  clouds  of  Darkness  behind.)  Join  thou 
these!  Forth!  Forth!  Out  upon  his  glistering  thoughts! 
Undo!  Undo!  He  is  sick  of  pity,  of  "peace!  Harry  thou 
with  these!  Destroy!  Make  dust  of  suns!  Breed  distem- 
pers in  all  flesh!  Reduce,  level,  macerate,  decay!  Make  of 
everything  nothing!  Forth!  Forth! 

THE  LEGIONS  OF  DARKNESS 
(Rumbling  in  anticipation.)    Hail!     (They  speed  outward.) 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(Rocking  to  and  fro  in  insane  pain.)  To  my  right  hand 
and  to  my  left!  Above  me,  and  beneath!  Before  me,  and 
behind!  Out — on!  Harry!  Destroy!  Cease,  Time!  Be 
nothing,  Space!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  End  thou 
me  the  weariness  of  this!  (He  weeps  in  frenetic  misery.) 

A  CLOUD  OF  SERAPHIM 

(Faded  to  but  pale  rays.)  Oh,  Measureless  Wonder  of  all 
Wonders!  Oh,  Creator  of  all  Things!  Canst  thou  not  think 
on  us?  We  die!  We  die!  (They  begin  to  fade.) 

A  CLOUD  OF  CHERUBIM 

(Shrunken  to  a  thin  line.)  Nor  on  us — on  us?  We  die! 
We  die!  (They  slowly  jade  also.) 

BEAUTY 

(Rising  and  mewing  all  with  weary  eyes.)  He  dreams  on 
me  no  more — on  Beauty  no  more!  Oh,  mad,  mad,  Lord!  Oh, 
fevered,  useless  dreams!  Gone  all  the  sweet  Seraphim  and 
Cherubim — the  halls  of  light  and  wonder — his  suns  and  jewel- 


I96  PHANTASMAGORIA 

stars!  His  dreams  have  changed.  These  his  horrors  are  now 
his  mood.  And  death— and  nothingness— for  all  of  us,  his 
mood!  (To  DESPAIR)  Hail!  Hail!  thou  unutterable  one. 
(To  AMBITION,  glowering  near.)  And  thou,  great  evil  one, 
his  torturous  swelling  thought!  Now  is  thy  dark  hour!  But 
sleep  and  nothingness  is  the  end  of  this  for  thee  and  all  1  Thou 
wouldst  destroy  even  me,  oh  evil  thing!  Yet  if  he  but  thought 
on  me,  how  different!  His  singing  world  again!  But  wait, 
wait!  If  he  think  on  thee  for  long  comes  death  and  the  end 
of  all  this — of  thee,  as  of  me!  By  death,  sleep!  And  by  sleep, 
if  he  sleep — where  then  is  his  thought  of  thee  or  me?  Pray 
that  he  change! 

AMBITION 

(Arrogantly.)  Avaunt,  thin  thing!  Now  is  my  Lord 
awake — he  thinks  on  me,  not  thee!  To  harry,  burn,  slay! 
To  his  right  hand  and  to  his  left!  Above  him,  and  beneath! 
Before  him,  and  behind!  He  is  for  strife,  strength,  conflict! 
To  harry,  slay,  lay  waste!  It  is  as  it  is!  He  knows  thee  not! 
(The  destroying  legiom  rumble.) 

PITY 

(Drawing  near  to  BEAUTY.)  He  thinks  not  on  me  again  I 
I  am  grown  so  thin!  Is  there  no  change?  Is  peace  worth 
nothing — the  tender  heart — the  end  of  agonies  and  stoims? 

AMBITION 

Avaunt!  He  knows  thee  not!  (PITY  shrinks  exceeding 
small.) 

LOVE 

(Drawing  near,  a  pale  shadow.)  Or  all  the  lovely  thoughts 
that  fluttered  into  happiness— are  they  worth  nothing? 

AMBITION 

Avaunt!  He  knows  thee  not,  thin  wraith!  (She  fades  to  a 
point.) 

REASON 
Nor  me?      Not  even  order? 


PHANTASMAGORIA  197 

AMBITION 
Hence!     (REASON  steps  aside.) 

HOPE 

Nor  yet  the  thought  he  had  in  me?  Can  he  not  remember 
me? 

AMBITION 

Vanish!  Thy  Lord  is  for  destruction!  He  thinks  not  on 
thee — but  on  me!  Hence!  (HOPE  pales  to  a  thin  flame.) 

BEAUTY 

(Proudly.)  Yet  am  I  Beauty,  his  first  thought!  Rage  on, 
thou  evil  one!  Of  what  avail,  since  thou  wilt  end  also? 
Destroy  as  thou  wilt,  he  will  not  forget  me!  I  am  that  which 
he  is — Beauty!  His  first  thought!  Think  madly  as  he  may, 
yet  will  his  last  thought,  as  his  first,  be  of  me.  I  am  in  him, 
and  he  in  me.  From  him,  when  he  wake,  if  ever,  will  I  cornel 
I  will  be  worshiped!  I  will  be  worshiped! 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(Writhing  in  a  last  insane  agony.)  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Oh, 
ho,  ho,  ho!  Let  me  have  done  with  Life!  Let  me  have  done 
with  Thought — Pain — with  Order,  Beauty,  Hope!  Let  me  have 
done  with  all  things!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Sick — sick!  Death! 
Death!  Burn!  Harry!  Slay!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  I  will  have 
done  with  all!  (He  tears  at  his  snaky  locks.) 

REASON 

(Sadly.)  Great  Master  of  us  all,  so  this  then  is  the  end? 
I,  who  was  thy  thought  of  order,  am  disordered!  I,  who  was 
thy  strength,  am  thy  weakness!  So  sink  I  back  to  nothing- 
ness! (He  re-enters  the  brow  of  the  Lord.) 

LOVE 

And  I,  who  was  his  thought  of  happiness!  So  come  I  to 
nothingness  again!  (She  re-enters  the  forehead  of  the  Lord.) 

PITY 

And  I,  who  was  his  thought  of  tenderness!  (She  jades  into 
his  brain.) 


I98  PHANTASMAGORIA 

HOPE 

And  I,  who  was  his  thought  of  love  and  peace!  (She  dis- 
appears also.) 

BEAUTY 

(Paling.)  Yet  is  he  not  done  with  me!  Mad  though  he  be, 
even  though  he  sleep,  now  I  feel  his  thought!  He  is  in  me, 
as  I  in  him!  I  will  be  worshiped!  I  will  be  worshiped! 
(She  re-enters  his  brow  undiminished.) 

FIRST  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Returning  and  entering  in.)  All  that  was  to  thy  left  hand 
is  not! 

THE  LORD 
Tis  well! 

SECOND  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Returning  and  entering  in.)  All  that  was  to  thy  right 
•  hand  is  not. 

THE  LORD 
'Tis  well! 

THIRD  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Returning  and  entering  in.)    All  that  was  before  thee  is 
not! 

THE  LORD 
'Tis  well! 

FOURTH  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Returning  and  entering  in.)  All  that  was  behind  thee  is 
not! 

THE  LORD 
Tis  well! 

FIFTH  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 
(Returning  and  entering.)    All  that  was  above  thee  is  not! 

THE  LORD 
'Tis  well! 

SIXTH  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Returning  and  entering.)  All  that  was  beneath  thee  is 
not! 


PHANTASMAGORIA  199 

THE  LORD 
Tis  well! 

AMBITION 

JTis  well!  Hail,  Lord!  As  thou  wouldst,  I  have  ended  thy 
dreams!  Canst  thou  not  rest? 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(Writhing.)  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  I  dream!  I 
dream!  It  is  too  much!  Destroy!  Destroy!  I  will  have 
peace!  I  will  have  peace!  (He  turns  and  writhes,  sinking  in 
weariness  as  he  does  so,  and  partially  disappearing.  JEons 
elapse.) 

FIRST  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Beginning  to  jade  in  the  brain  of  the  Lord.)  It  is  of  me 
that  he  ceases  to  think!  I  fail!  (He  disappears.) 

AMBITION 
(Sadly.)    It  is  the  end! 

SECOND  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Beginning  to  fade  in  the  brain  of  the  Lord.)  It  is  of  me 
he  ceases  to  think.  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  I  fail!  (He  disappears. ) 

AMBITION 
(Sadly.)    It  is  the  end! 

THIRD  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Writhing  and  fading  in  the  brain  of  the  Lord.)  It  is  of  me 
he  ceases  to  think!  I  fail!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  (He  disappears.) 

AMBITION 
It  is  the  end! 

FOURTH  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 

(Fading  into  the  brain  of  the  Lord.)  It  is  of  me  he  ceases 
to  think!  I  fail!  (He  groans  and  disappears.) 

AMBITION 
It  is  the  end! 

FIFTH  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 
It  is  of  me  he  ceases  to  think!     I  fail!     (He  disappears.) 

AMBITION 
It  is  the  end! 


200  PHANTASMAGORIA 

SIXTH  POWER  OF  DARKNESS 
It  is  of  me  he  ceases  to  think!    I  fail!    (He  disappears.) 

AMBITION 
It  is  the  end! 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

(Stretching  prone  in  space  and  all  but  vanishing.  Only 
faint  outlines  are  visible  here  and  there,  the  brow  and  face  in- 
tact.) Peace!  Peace!  It  is  enough!  It  is  enough!  I  have 
done!  Let  it  be  as  it  ever  was  from  everlasting  to  everlasting 
— a  dream — a  dream!  Oh,  ho,  ho,  ho!  (He  sighs  heavily. 
The  last  writhing  beasts  thin  and  are  gone.  AMBITION, 
paling  and  thinning,  stands  wide-eyed,  agape,  before  the  Jading 
brow  of  the  Lord.) 

AMBITION 

At  last!  And  I — it  is  of  me  he  ceases  to  think — even  me! 
I  have  done!  I  have  done!  (He  vanishes.) 

BEAUTY 

(A  thin  star  in  the  brow  of  the  Lord,  glistering  and  yet 
paling.)  It  is  even  of  me  he  ceases  to  think!  Lord,  hast  thou 
forgotten  thy  first-born? 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

Peace!  Peace!  Enter  thou  into  me!  (He  sighs  and  begins 
to  vanish  completely.) 

BEAUTY 

(Fading  into  his  sleep.)  I  will  be  worshiped!  I  will  be 
worshiped!  (She  smiles.) 

The  illusion  of  reality  ceases.  Suns  and  planets 
are  gone.  Time  and  Space  are  not.  That  which 
was  is  as  that  which  was  not. 


ASHTORETH 

WHAT  has  impressed  me  most  about  life,  always,  is  the 
freshness  and  newness  of  everything,  the  perennial  up- 
welling  of  life  in  every  form;  the  manner  in  which,  as  age  steals 
on  for  some,  youth,  new,  innocent,  inexperienced,  believing, 
takes  charge,  its  eyes  alight  with  aspiration,  its  body  ablaze  with 
desire.  We  know  that  the  world  is  old,  old,  and  societies 
also  in  every  form,  while  the  average  span  of  life  for  the 
individual  is  little  more  than  forty  years — yet  step  into  the 
streets  and  witness  the  immemorable  clangor  and  newness,  the 
present  visible  portion  of  the  unbroken  thread  or  pattern  that 
reaches  back  into  eternity.  And  for  all  that  life  is  so  old,  old, 
and  atoms  of  the  life  pattern  or  chain  are  feeble,  is  life  old? 
Does  the  bit  of  thread  or  pattern  that  we  see  here  now  show  the 
least  evidence  of  wear  or  tear?  Is  not  the  race  as  new,  as 
fresh  as  ever?  We  rise  betimes  and  the  ancient  sunlight 
streams  fresh  and  strong  and  new  into  our  passing  window — • 
this  window  which,  in  a  few  years,  will  be  as  forgotten  and  as 
non-recoverable  as  we  ourselves  shall  be. 

And  the  ways  without — are  they  crowded  with  the  aged,  the 
worn,  the  soul-weary?  Here  and  there,  perhaps,  a  halting, 
bent  or  time-worn  specimen  that  attracts  attention  for  its  age! 
In  the  main,  at  every  turn,  youth  is  in  charge,  laughing,  sing- 
ing, whistling,  the  newest  modes  of  the  Zeitgeist  adorning  it,  the 
latest  coats,  the  latest  hats,  the  latest  shoes  heightening  the 
charm  of  bodies  utterly  evanescent.  The  percentage  of  the 
really  aged  abroad  is  as  one  to  one  hundred — one  thousand. 
Viewing  the  swift  tides  of  life  as  they  burble  in  the  great 
thoroughfares  they  are  utterly  negligible.  And  it  is  always 
so.  A  large  crowd  of  the  old  and  the  weak  and  the  defective 

201 


202  ASHTORETH 

would  be  an  astounding  sight  anywhere  in  life  that  is  so  old. 

Yes,  life  is  careful  to  do  away  with  all  evidences  of  age  in 
the  public  places  where  it  runs  so  gaily.  The  sick— are  they 
here  or  in  hospitals  or  darkened  bedrooms?  The  maimed,  the 
blind,  the  defective  in  any  way— are  they  here,  or  hidden 
away  in  institutions  where  the  young  and  the  hopeful  may 
not  see?  Life  apparently  resents  them.  It  will  not  have 
its  ways  bestrewn  by  its  discarded  implements  and  shells. 
Out,  out,  since  it  is  done  with  them.  Away!  There  is  much 
talk  of  charity  and  the  beatitudes,  but  let  one  lose  an  arm,  a 
leg,  an  eye,  a  hand.  Practically  the  entire  world  shudders  and 
withdraws.  Better,  indeed,  a  criminal,  whole  and  exhibiting 
that  self-sufficiency  which  the  life  impulse  demands,  than  to 
have  been  injured  in  any  worthy  or  even  glorious  contest. 
Rarely  if  ever,  and  never  willingly,  does  Life  obtrude  upon  our 
unwilling  gaze  a  suggestion  of  the  brevity  of  our  own  strength 
or  charm,  or  present  to  the  eye  even  a  faint  suggestion  of  the 
inscrutable  and  astounding  and  even  wholesale  cruelty  of  itself. 
Indeed,  where  Nature  with  her  illusions  has  her  way,  pain, 
weariness  and  death  are  never  to  be  accepted  as  the  huge  con- 
trolling facts  that  they  are. 

What — Nature  cruel?  Look  at  the  freshness  of  Her  face,  the 
joy  of  Her  perpetual  youth,  the  glory  of  Her  springs,  the  rich- 
ness and  variety  of  Her  facets  and  changes!  Quite  so.  She  is 
the  subtlest  of  all  our  enemies,  the  wisest  of  all  our  craftsmen 
and  managers.  Her  instinct  and  therefore  Her  business  is  to 
keep  the  eternal  freshness  and  durability  and  zest  of  life  upper- 
most, and  this  She  does  with  unbelievable  skill.  For  although 
we  are  here,  young  and  new,  believing  vigorously  in  our  destiny, 
the  grand  sum  of  our  future  and  its  durability,  still  only  forty 
or  fifty  years  ago  there  were  all  of  a  billion  people  here  who 
were  as  fresh  and  as  vigorous  and  as  youthful  as  we  are  now. 
They  believed  in  their  grand  destinies  as  we  believe  in  ours,  and 
where  are  they?  Gone.  No  trace — no  memory  even — no  care. 
Only  we  are  what  is  left  of  what  was  them,  their  descendants. 


ASHTORETH  203 

And  the  astonishing  tragedies,  the  painful  diseases,  the 
most  grinding  and  wearing  of  denied  hopes,  by  reason  of 
which  they  are  no  longer  here  and  we  are — how  adroitly  even 
the  memory  of  these  have  been  removed!  The  wonder!  Yet 
life  is  as  fresh  now  as  it  was  then.  It  has  not  aged.  It  has 
not  gone.  The  endless  chain  is  as  bright  and  strong  as  ever — 
stronger,  maybe.  To-morrow  when  we  are  where  they  are  it 
will  be  as  taut  and  shining  and  swift-moving  and  as  new  as 
ever. 

But  these  young  bustling  souls  swinging  their  canes,  light- 
ing their  cigarettes,  whistling  and  dreaming  of  a  perfect  to- 
morrow— do  they  know  aught  of  this?  Not  a  word.  And  will 
they?  Not,  in  the  main,  until  it  is  too  late  to  affect  their  lives. 
And,  better  yet,  and  what  is  really  more  important,  they  do  not 
care.  Life  has  one  admirable  trait:  it  limits  the  sensibility  of 
many.  "Never  mind,  dearie,"  it  seems  to  say,  "do  not  worry 
about  me,  or  older  days.  The  old  was  nothing,  the  new  is  all. 
Eat,  drink,  be  merry  and  forget.  It  is  best."  Thus  life,  and  it 
is  her  intention  that  they  shall.  Each  sorrow  or  deprivation  or 
disaster  as  it  befalls  them  is  painted  in  their  consciousness  as 
special  to  them.  Never  before  was  there  one  such  to  equal 
this.  No,  no.  Life  would  not  be  so  cruel.  She  would  not  in- 
tentionally do  this  to  any  one.  "What!"  she  whispers  artfully 
and  convincingly,  "life  induce  such  bitter  tears?  Life  ruth- 
lessly and  cruelly  deprive  any  one  of  a  hand?  an  eye?  of 
life  itself?  Never.  To  be  injured  thus  indifferently,  when 
so  many  are  not,  was  never  intended  by  her  for  you,  as  you  can 
see.  If  that  is  not  so,  why  is  it  so  many  are  well,  hale,  happy?" 
So  she  lies,  for  well  she  knows  that  each  can  know  but  a  very 
little,  has  no  time  to  learn  more.  And  she  sees  that  he  has  not. 

But  in  the  dark  places,  the  back  rooms,  the  upper  floors  or 
cellars  of  tenements  or  great  houses,  the  hospitals,  the  asylums, 
the  jails,  the  farms  and  homes  for  the  aged — and  the  enormous 
graveyards!  Look  and  see.  Here  are  those  who  but  a  little  while 
since  were  a  part  of  this  pell-mell  vigorous  scene.  They  were 


204  ASHTORETH 

her  tools,  as  you  are  now,  her  victims.  She  fashioned  them  as 
one  might  a  small  machine,  used  them  for  a  while  for  some- 
thing and  then  threw  them  aside.  Like  a  knife  or  any  tool,  they 
grew  a  little  dull,  and  it  is  so  much  easier  to  fashion  a  new  one. 
We  are  intended  to  last  only  a  little  while.  While  your  strength 
is  budding  that  of  others  is  failing.  While  your  cheeks  are 
reddening  theirs  are  paling.  While  your  eyes  are  sharpening  in 
shrewdness  theirs  are  weakening  to  a  dim  myopia,  and  you  may 
soon  out-see  them  and  push  them  aside.  Yet  the  bodies  of  the 
old  that  so  offend  you  now  were  as  lithe  as  your  own,  and 
they  in  their  hour  were  grumbling  at  the  ineffectiveness  of 
age. 

But  the  darkest  part  of  it  is  that  aside  from  the  small  mod- 
icum of  service  which  you  may  render  at  top  speed  and  with 
the  utmost  enthusiasm,  Nature  has  not  the  slightest  care  for 
you  or  yours.  With  the  same  cavalier  air  with  which  She  pro- 
vides a  hundred  drones  for  the  single  love-flight  of  the  queen 
bee,  all  the  failures  to  die,  so  She  provides  a  thousand,  or  ten 
thousand,  or  a  hundred  thousand,  that  one — and  only  one — 
may  think  the  necessary  thought,  invent  the  necessary  ma- 
chine, build  the  necessary  bridge  or  lead  the  necessary  army. 
The  rest  may  die  as  they  will.  They  are  chaff.  Lay  them  out 
in  hundreds— in  millions — to  be  blown  whithersoever  the  wind 
listeth,  to  poverty,  to  death,  perchance  even  to  fortune,  a  brief 
hour.  Who  cares?  Not  She.  Only  the  ways  of  life  must  be 
kept  fresh  and  new,  the  illusion  of  newness  and  vigor  main- 
tained. Only  through  new  bright  instruments  will  She  work, 
and  none  other.  A  tasteful  maid.  In  the  blood-stream  of  your 
body  are  quadrillions  of  little  entities— so  many  millions  to  the 
single  blood  drop — whose  total  destiny,  apparently,  is  to  your 
life  about  as  yours  is  to  the  race — and  no  more.  They  hurry 
that  you  may  live.  They  toil  that  you  may  smile,  seek,  yearn, 
blaze  with  ecstasy.  A  fraction  of  a  minute  each,  and  their  little 
cycles  have  been  run.  So  yours  here.  But  do  they  know?  Or 
care?  Or  do  you?  There  is  that  much  wisdom  or  tenderness  or 


ASHTORETH  205 

practicality  in  Nature,  that  for  the  majority  She  inhibits  the 
power  of  memory  or  perspective  or  too  great  sensitiveness  to 
joy  or  pain.  Else  what  a  cursing,  else  what  a  wailing,  else 
what  a  ceasing — even  in  the  face  of  Her  imperial  will. 


THE  REFORMER 

AMONG  the  interesting  phenomena  of  life  is  the  periodic 
appearance  in  every  walk  of  life  of  the  reformer,  the 
individual  who,  according  to  some  theory  based  on  clear  per- 
ception or  some  delusion  that  has  developed  in  his  brain,  seeks 
to  readjust  conditions  as  he  finds  them  to  something  more  in 
accord  with  what  is  agreeable  to  him,  and  who  accordingly,  by 
a  process  of  transference  akin  to  that  which  has  been  so  ade- 
quately set  forth  in  psychoanalysis,  seeks  to  represent  himself 
to  himself  as  a  world  need.  Always  it  is  life,  not  himself,  that 
is  in  need  of  this  new  condition,  and  so  him.  And  what  is  it 
that  as  a  rule  he  offers  or  seeks?  Without  exception,  if  you 
trouble  to  examine  the  great  instances— Buddha,  Christ,  Con- 
fucius, St.  Francis,  Luther,  Mohammed— it  is  a  revision  of  a 
current,  and  in  itself  passing,  condition  which  has  become 
irritating  to  his  sense  of  balance  or  proportion  or  equation  in 
things  mundane,  his  personal  and  physical  reaction  to  or  sen- 
sory repulsion  from  conditions  which  have  become  chemically 
(socially,  spiritually,  anything  you  will)  too  far  removed  from 
a  norm  or  mean  or  equation  which  appeals  to  him,  his  eternal 
and  special  view  of  harmony.  But  this  after  all  is  chemic  and 
natural,  and  when  he  is  successful  he  merely  represents  an  in- 
evitable tendency  in  nature  to  maintain  a  balance  or  equation 
between  one  type  of  mood  and  another,  only  one  of  which  can 
be  dominant  for  a  time  and  of  which  he  becomes  the  passing 
representative. 

It  is  the  only  way  apparently  in  which  the  moving  spirit 
which  creates  us  can  express— or,  better  yet,  change— itself. 
Our  self-propulsive  emotions,  moods  or  appetites  have  some- 

206 


THE  REFORMER  207 

how  a  tendency,  if  uninterrupted,  to  lead  us  too  far  in  some 
one  direction — to  the  place,  for  instance,  where  a  chemical  or 
physical  non-balance  is  threatened  to  that  dependent  equation 
of  rival  forces  in  which  we  all  find  ourselves  immersed  or  held. 
Then,  apparently,  by  an  inhering  law  which  compels  balance 
or  equation  in  all  things,  a  counter-tendency  which  is  most 
likely  to  first  present  itself  in  the  shape  of  a  reformer,  or 
instructor,  or  warner,  always  chemical  in  his  significance,  ap- 
pears (Buddha,  Christ,  Mohammed,  Luther),  and  you  have  a 
readjustment  toward  a  happy  medium  again,  as  it  were.  One 
phase  of  life,  let  us  say,  grows  and  presses  too  dominantly  on 
another.  Forthwith  a  spokesman  or  mouthpiece  of  some  kind 
arises,  the  antithesis  of  the  dominant  thing,  by  no  means 
remote  or  divine  but  plainly  human  and  simple  and  easily 
understandable,  if  he  is  to  prove  of  any  value.  That  is  why 
it  is  always  esoterically  safe  in  gross  material  days  to  look 
forward  to  the  coming  of  a  Christ  or  Messiah,  or  reformer,  or 
changer,  of  one  type  or  another.  He  is  in  reality  a  chemic 
and  psychic  sign.  He  cannot  help  coming.  He  is  merely  an 
individual  expression  of  the  general  tendency  toward  balance 
or  equation.  And  he  will  surely  come  when  things  swing  too 
far  in  any  given  direction.  Any  one  can  be  a  mouthpiece  for 
an  extreme  lack  of  balance  in  human  affairs,  any  one.  The 
accident  of  circumstances  usually  distinguishes  that  one. 

But  by  that  we  are  not  told  that  extremes,  either  of  the 
gross  or  material,  or  on  the  other  hand  of  the  spiritual  or 
ascetic,  are  to  be  permanently  done  away  with  or  "reformed," 
or  that  either,  when  dominant,  is  essentially  evil  or  good,  or 
that  the  replacing  thing  is  essentially  better  and  so  should  re- 
main forever.  Rather,  what  is  new  and  ameliorative — be  it 
religious,  ethic  or  economic — is  merely  one  or  the  other  half  or 
portion  or  face  of  that  which  was  before  it  came,  a  change  from, 
or  the  obverse  of,  the  other.  Indeed  the  essential  character  of 
God,  or  the  biologic  force,  or  the  Universe,  is  not  made  much 
clearer  unless  we  see  in  this  tendency  to  change  or  equation  in 


2o8  THE  REFORMER 

all  things  that  it  or  he  is  both  good  and  evil.  Since  chemically 
or  spiritually  we  are  compelled  always  to  seek  a  level  or 
balance  and  maintain  it,  roughly  enough  it  is  true;  since  to 
live  is  to  swing  to  and  fro,  past  a  mean  and  between  extremes, 
may  we  not  deduce  from  that  that  equation,  balance,  is  an  at- 
tribute of  God  or  the  life  force,  a  conditioning  attribute,  and 
one  under  which  it  must  express  itself? 

For  in  life,  as  we  may  always  note,  and  at  the  very  moment 
the  greatest  reformers  are  operating,  there  are  also  working 
— and  quite  as  vigorously,  else  the  reformer  would  have  little  to 
do — anti-reformers,  or  anti-Christs,  or  reactionaries,  if  you 
will,  creatures  who  represent  the  obverse  of  what  is  sought  by 
the  reformer  or  changer,  and  who  will  by  no  means  be  per- 
manently disposed  of  by  him.  Life  apparently  goes  on  two  legs, 
or  opposites,  always — heat:  cold;  high:  low;  external:  in- 
ternal; strength:  weakness;  little:  much;  excluded:  included. 
Side  by  side  with  millions  or  billions  who  wish  one  type  of  thing 
are  always  millions  or  billions  who  wish  another,  whose  im- 
pulses, desires  and  necessities  are  the  very  antithesis  of  those 
advocated  by  the  reformers,  saviors,  adjusters  then  operating. 
Thus  as  Christ  walked  the  earth  there  were  Herod,  and  the 
whole  brood  of  Roman,  Greek  and  Egyptian  philosophers — pa- 
gans all — scouting  his  beliefs  and  dreams,  and  their  descendants 
are  with  us  yet.  About  St.  Francis  were  the  millions  of  gour- 
mandizers  and  lechers  of  France,  Italy  and  the  European  world 
generally  (to  say  nothing  of  the  skeptical  Innocent  III.),  too 
gross  to  perceive  the  significance  of  that  which  the  saint  repre- 
sented. Yet  St.  Francis  was  little  more  than  a  chemical  reaction 
against  a  too-heavy  materialism  that  enveloped  Europe — noth- 
ing more,  truly.  He  was,  as  it  were,  poetry  as  opposed  to  the 
grossest  and  most  sodden  type  of  materialistic  thought.  This 
is  equally  true  of  Luther  and  so  many  others.  Christ  the  same; 
Mohammed  the  same.  Yet  plainly  the  creative  force  which  we 
worship  as  God,  the  underlying  chemistry  with  its  cell  mechan- 
ism, was  as  much  the  maker  of  the  fat  sensualists  who  sur- 


THE  REFORMER  209 

rounded  and  enraged  Luther  as  it  was  of  Luther.  It  was  and 
is  in  both,  and  both  in  it.  Else  how  explain  their  joint  presence 
and  conflict,  their  psychic  as  well  as  chemic  necessity  to  each 
other,  the  one  useless  without  the  other — no  devil  no  saint, 
and  vice  versa?  I  for  one  am  convinced  that  the  Universe,  or 
God,  or  Good,  is  no  more  concerned  with  our  saints  than  with 
our  sinners.  Both  may  be  essential,  no  doubt  are.  Certainly 
both  are  in  it,  from  it,  necessary  to  it,  expressive  of  different 
moods  of  it,  and  as  such  necessary  to  each  other,  in  order  that 
it  or  life  shall  exist,  express  itself,  at  all.  From  this  I  see  no 
escape  by  any  path. 

The  great  aim  of  all  reformers — that  of  permanently  re- 
forming man  in  his  social  as  well  as  his  religious  ways  or  inten- 
tions, in  his  lusts  after  sensuality  and  the  like,  from  a  (in 
their  estimation)  condition  of  too  great  license  to  one  of  none 
at  all — is  of  course  ridiculous.  Although  always  "Justice," 
"Right,"  "Truth,"  "Eternal  law"  are  supposed  to  be  involved 
in  their  commandments  or  demands,  and  presumed  to  repre- 
sent a  permanent  and  unchanging  state  of  perfection  of  some 
kind — the  all-good  in  some  direction,  and  as  such  to  be  the 
direct  commandments  of  God  Himself — what  is  really,  often 
unintelligently,  sought  is  an  easement  of  a  too-great  social 
swing  in  any  one  direction.  Not  perfection,  but  a  better  bal- 
ance, is  all  that  is  really  sought  or  ever  attained.  Yet  so 
errant  and  nonsensical  is  life,  its  social  or  chemic  drift — mere 
idle  rocking  of  force  in  one  direction  or  another  at  times— 
that  man,  for  a  time  at  least  at  one  period  or  another,  may 
be  made  to  believe  in  or  at  least  conform  to,  even  coincide 
with,  some  current  conception  of  the  ideal  which  may  or  may 
not  be  in  line  with  his  greatest  need,  equation,  in  his  affairs 
here  or  elsewhere  at  the  time — which,  indeed,  may  be  abso- 
lutely inimical  to  his  mental  progress,  as  in  the  case  of  Moham- 
medanism, Shintoism,  Christianity  and  the  like.  In  other 
words,  the  necessity  for  obtaining  a  better  equation  in  one  place 
may  very  well  upset  a  very  excellent  equation  elsewhere.  Thus, 


210  THE  REFORMER 

while  it  might  be  of  passing  advantage  in  one  country— Arabia, 
say — that  a  readjustment  via  the  thoughts  of  a  Mohammed 
would  be  in  order,  it  does  not  follow  that  his  local  "Rights," 
"Truths"  and  homilies  would  elsewhere  be  essential.  Yet 
essential  or  no,  an  impetus  flowing  from  such  a  center  may 
well  disturb  a  better  equation  elsewhere.  This  was  illustrated 
when  Mohammedanism  assailed  Christianity  in  Europe. 

The  truth  is  that  what  the  reformers  are  always  seeking, 
ignorantly  or  otherwise,  is  a  better  balance  in  things  social  or 
mental  or  moral,  less  accentuated  tendencies  of  any  kind — 
usually  away  from  the  too-gross,  although  at  times  away  from 
the  too-ascetic  also,  toward  which  extremes  life  appears  to 
swing  at  times.  And  what  they  do  is  to  identify  their  meager, 
if  equational,  perceptions  of  life  with  eternal  thought  or  order, 
and  to  insist  that  the  half  of  the  balance  which  they  represent 
is  the  whole  of  it.  As  a  rule  they  are  quite  unfitted  by  ignor- 
ance as  well  as  by  the  time  mood  of  which  they  are  the  expres- 
sion to  see  that  without  that  against  which  they  war  neither 
they  nor  their  divine  creator  would  have  the  least  excuse  for 
existing. 

To  me,  not  violent  extremes  of  any  kind,  although  these  are 
productive  of  great  suffering  at  times,  but  the  suave  inanity 
which  imagines  it  wants  only  unchanging  good  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  unchanging  evil,  is  the  thing  to  be  feared.  Fortunately 
or  unfortunately,  as  one  may  view  this  thing,  a  strictly  median 
condition,  while  excellent  as  a  haven  of  refuge  from  extremes, 
is  nevertheless  never  wholly  or  easily  attained  in  life,  and  never, 
apparently,  seriously  desired  by  it,  as  an  end  in  itself,  and  never 
quite  satisfactory.  Indeed  it  is  the  equivalent  of  nothingness 
and  would  produce  just  that  if  the  world  sought  to  persist  in 
it.  Yet  wise  Nature  is  our  rescuer  in  this  as  in  many  an- 
other plight  in  which  betimes  She  places  us  for  ends  of  Her 
own,  for  Nature  seeks,  if  She  seeks  anything,  motion,  although 
apparently  in  no  straight  line.  Her  mood,  if  anything, 
is  synchronic,  rhythmic,  pendulumic.  She  wishes,  if  one  may 


THE  REFORMER  211 

interpret  Her  wishes  from  what  may  be  seen  here,  to  swing  in 
a  semi-balanced  way  between  extremes  of  so-called  good  and 
evil — never  all  good  and  never  all  evil,  but  a  little  of  both, 
or  plenty,  in  order  that  there  may  be  contention,  strife,  some- 
thing to  live  about  and  for.  These  violent  extremes  of  any 
kind — ascetic,  religious,  barbaric,  or  repulsive — which  affect 
life  and  irritate  our  souls,  or  the  souls  of  some  of  us,  are  not 
at  all  offensive  to  Nature  in  Her  entirety  apparently.  She  ap- 
pears to  like  extremes  as  well  as  a  median  line,  the  latter  as  a 
fence  or  break  between  them,  and  will  have  nothing  of  per- 
petual anything  in  any  one  direction.  And  life,  it  seems  to  me, 
would  be  more  understandable,  less  disturbing  to  most  of  us, 
if  in  hours  of  stress  of  any  kind  we  were  able  to  realize  this — 
that  Nature  adores  extremes,  with  always  a  happy  medium  as 
the  guiding  and  dividing  line  to  which  She  can  return  and  on 
which  She  can  fix,  as  the  mariner  on  the  North  Star.  And  if 
some  such  more  liberal  conception  of  God,  or  force,  or  life,  or 
the  creative  impulse,  could  be  introduced,  it  would  be  better. 
What  we  really  need  is  a  better  stomach  for  life  as  it  is,  and 
Nature,  in  the  course  of  time,  may  possibly  build  us  such. 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE 

"Whom  does  not  love  rule?  And  where  is  he  not  Lord?" 

Epiphanes  Soter. 

"There  is  no  advisable  love  unless  it  is  as  reverent  as  it 
is  romantic,  as  permanent  as  it  is  passionate." 

George  M.  Gould. 

"Faithful  monogamy  must  ever  be  woman's  standard  in 
love,  because  only  in  its  still  certainty  can  she  fitly  pre- 
pare and  keep  the  place  for  her  child" 

Beatrice  Forbes-Robertson  Hale. 

"Too  many  have  forgotten  that  love  is  as  much  a  subject 
of  the  law  of  evolution  or  progressive  development  as  any 
other  biologic  thing." 

Haeckel. 

N.  B.  The  attached  six  questions,  to  which  I  have  ap- 
pended answers,  were  once  submitted  to  me  by  an  American 
publication  for  comment  or  solution!  At  the  time  I  was  unable 
to  make  an  intelligible  reply,  but  having  since  given  the  matter 
thought  I  have  answered  them,  largely  for  my  own  satisfaction. 
They  are  submitted  with  no  faith  in  any  possible  fixed  solu- 
tion but  merely  as  meat  for  passing  discussion. 


Why  is  it,  when  there  are  so  many  evidences  in  favor  of 
marriage  as  we  practice  it,  that  so  many  marriages  fall 
short  of  just  the  purpose  they  seem  meant  to  serve? 

212 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  213 

In  the  first  place,  are  there  so  many  evidences  in  favor  of 
marriage  as  we  practice  it?  In  part  the  question  contains  its 
own  answer  when  it  states  that  so  many  marriages  fall  short 
of  just  the  purpose  they  seem  meant  to  serve.  Statistics  for 
marriage  and  divorce  show  that  one  out  of  every  seven  mar- 
riages ends  in  the  divorce  court.  For  every  one  thus  openly 
disrupted,  how  many  others  are  restrained  or  concealed  for 
reasons  of  religion,  morality,  children,  society  and  business 
policy  or  permitted  license?  Many  a  couple  agree  to  go  their 
ways  separately,  doing  as  they  please  and  shielding  each  other 
in  their  privileges.  Others  drift  into  a  quarrelsome  or  unhappy 
state  from  sheer  inertia  or  lack  of  means  or  charm  or  courage 
to  establish  or  create  a  new  condition.  Millions  sink  in  the 
slough  of  despond  because  they  have  not  strength  of  any  kind. 
Age,  poverty,  thickness  of  wit  does  for  them  completely. 

Now  there  is  no  need,  and  should  be  no  desire,  to  evade  the 
biologic  necessity  implied  by  marriage.  Children  must  be 
brought  into  the  world  and  reared  if  life  is  to  go  on.  All  the 
why-fors  of  this  are  given  in  a  thousand  biologic  and  anthro- 
pologic  volumes,  and  so  no  need  to  discuss  them  here.  But  this 
much  may  be  said,  that  among  animals  the  limits  of  the  control 
of  the  maternal  feeling  or  instinct  are  rigidly  confined  to  simple 
necessity.  Love  seems  to  disappear  as  soon  as  the  young  can 
possibly  walk  or  fly  and  get  their  food — proof  of  its  mechanis- 
tic or  chemic  quality  and  origin  and  its  lack  of  any  sacrosanct 
and  "for  eternity"  spiritual  character.  Indeed,  under  most 
phases  of  animal  life  the  father  is  absolutely  indifferent  to  the 
fate  of  his  offspring.  In  many,  perhaps  most,  animals  he  seems 
to  care  no  more  for  his  children  than  if  they  were  moving 
bushes.  Certainly  he  cares  no  more  for  his  own  than  for  those 
of  another,  and  the  idea  of  any  love  toward  grandchildren  is 
absurd.  Not  even  the  mother  shows  this. 

But  it  is  of  the  greatest  interest  to  note  that  with  the  appear- 
ance of  humanity  and  its  ideas  of  home  and  property  (both, 
products  of  maternal  instinct  or  the  chemic  necessity  in  her 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE 

for  the  care  of  her  young)  there  has  arisen  a  natural  extension 
of  the  scope  and  control  of  the  family  instinct,  so  that  the 
interest  of  the  parents  continues  into  or  through  adult  life. 
Support  and  protection  of  the  mother  continues  beyond  the 
child-bearing  period,  grandchildren  are  beloved,  more  distant 
relatives  are  held  within  the  family  affection,  and  the  patri- 
archal type  of  society  is  established.  Since  the  higher  ideals  of 
society  and  civilization  have  been  permitted  to  arise  the  aegis 
of  love  has  extended  over  the  nation,  and  patriotism,  with  its 
great  influence  in  war  and  history,  has  appeared.  Finally  that 
highest  development  of  humanity,  ethics  or  love  of  humanity, 
has  arisen  (still  an  actual  outgrowth  and  extension  of  maternal 
instinct  or  love  apparently),  as  well  as  the  theory  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  Divine  Father-Mother  of  humanity  and  of  all  life. 

Yes,  since  the  period  of  the  law  and  the  influence  of  Rome 
and  the  idea  of  love,  the  practice  of  it  by  enduring  families 
has  become  rapidly  more  complex.  To  the  force  of  sex  com- 
pulsion and  instinct,  never  omitted,  have  been  added  per- 
manency, monogamy,  home-keeping  virtues,  pedagogy,  public 
health,  civic  and  political  honor,  democracy  and  a  thousand 
such  compounds.  Has  it  stood  up  well  under  them?  Is  the 
load  too  great?  Our  riotous  divorce  practices  and  statistics,  as 
well  as  the  so-called  sex  or  prostitution  problem,  raises  a  sharp 
question.  Does  the  average  strong  successful  man  confine  him- 
self to  one  woman?  Has  he  ever?  Does  the  exceptionally 
beautiful  and  dynamic  woman  confine  herself  to  one  man? 
Has  she  ever?  Has  not  fear  frightened  the  weak  into  a  kind 
of  rat-like  dodging  or  a  sniveling,  quarreling,  complaining  com- 
pliance? It  may  be  and  no  doubt  is  true  that  the  so-called 
"building  of  the  future,"  contemplated  by  the  mechanistic  or 
biologic  impulse,  if  by  anything,  cannot  be  based  on  sensuality 
entirely;  but  the  retort  may  be  that  Nature  never  seems  to 
desire  or  achieve  a  wholesale  debauchery  any  more  than  she 
desires  a  cold  and  narrow  monogamy — the  religionists  and 
wethic-mongers  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  At  best  she 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  215 

strikes  a  balance,  wishes  apparently  virtue  opposed  to  de- 
bauchery, and  vice  versa,  for  ends  of  her  own. 

But  to  return.  However  mechanically  and  instinctively  it 
may  have  started,  Life  has  since  developed  the  more  or  less 
gorgeous  chemistry  of  love  with  which  now,  if  never  in  the 
past,  it  is  invested.  Human  beings  are  apparently  capable  of 
higher  and  more  enduring  synthetic  and  chemic  affinities,  and 
this  to  many  has  seemed  to  warrant  the  second  thought  where- 
with this  interview  is  prefaced.  Yet,  for  all  this  higher  develop- 
ment, the  strain  of  practical  life  appears  to  be  too  much  for  it. 
Besides  the  compulsion  imposed  by  the  biologic  process  which 
draws  two  people  together  there  is  a  process  of  self-evolution 
and  variation  which  seems  to  conflict  with  the  marriage  tie. 
How  subtle  is  that  problem  which  is  to  keep  two  people,  sub- 
ject to  internal  and  external  chemical  and  physical  changes, 
harmonious  for  the  eternity  for  which  they  are  supposed  to  be 
linked?  Nothing  short  of  this  is  the  theory  which  the  religion- 
ist propounds.  The  moralist,  not  bound  by  religious  dogma, 
will  make  the  bond  for  life  only.  The  philosopher  or  chemist 
transmutes  the  bond  into  a  problem  and  speculates  on  how 
many  weeks,  or  months,  or  years,  the  unstable  equation  may 
endure. 

In  considering  the  validity  of  our  ideas  in  regard  to  mar- 
riage we  either  accept  the  current  religionistic  or  moralistic 
theory,  or  we  do  not.  For  those  who  do  there  is  no  problem: 
they  must  accept  their  chains  and  slavery,  if  so  they  find 
marriage  to  be,  and  make  a  virtue  of  their  sufferings.  For 
those  who  do  not  there  is  the  agonizing  problem  of  the  need 
of  an  equation  in  the  matter  of  change.  Somewhere  they  must 
draw  the  line,  or  necessity,  increasing  age,  the  difficulty  of 
living  in  a  moving-van,  will  fix  the  line  for  them.  Again,  there 
is  a  limit  to  any  individual's  capacity  for  change,  however 
kaleidoscopic  that  may  be.  After  all,  any  individual,  male  or 
female,  however  attractive,  is  but  single  in  quantity,  and  the 
choice  offered  to  either  of  a  suitable  helpmate  or  companion 


2i6  MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE 

is  not  so  very  large.  One  may  be  forever  lowering  a  hook  into 
the  water,  but  not  all  the  fishes  in  the  sea  may  take  it  even 
if  they  would.  Solomon  may  have  had  three  hundred  wives 
and  seven  hundred  concubines,  but  it  can  scarcely  be  said  that 
he  needed  them  or  that  they  got  much  out  of  it;  and  while  it 
is  conceivable  that  a  man  or  woman  in  swift  kaleidoscopic 
search,  and  devoting  him  or  herself  strictly  to  the  task  in 
hand,  might  enjoy  as  many  as  a  thousand  or  so  of  the  oppo- 
site sex  in  the  course  of  a  lifetime,  it  can  scarcely  be  con- 
sidered valuable  from  the  point  of  view  of  public  policy  and 
little  less  than  difficult  and,  as  it  would  seem  to  one  at  least, 
profitless  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  individual  himself. 

On  the  other  hand  there  enters  into  the  matter  the  very 
serious  problem  suggested  by  question  IV,  which  I  will  include 
and  touch  on  here  for  a  moment  only:  "Are  the  children  of 
any  union  better  served  by  successive  marriages  than  by  a 
home  where  parents  are  held  together,  even  though  not  by 
love  but  rather  by  a  sense  of  duty  to  their  children?"  Obvi- 
ously, Nature  intended  marriage  for  the  reproduction  and  care 
of  children,  but  I  beg  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  Nature, 
or  God,  or  the  biologic  process,  or  what  you  will,  is  no  better 
planner  or  executor  of  any  given  theory  or  scheme  it  may  have 
in  mind  than  man  himself.  If  this  were  not  true  there  would 
be  no  physically  imperfect  men  or  women.  The  student  of 
the  pathology  of  sex,  as  well  as  of  the  sources  of  life  itself,  is 
confronted  by  a  thousand  variations  from  that  happy  norm  on 
which  the  moralistic  marriage  must  be  based.  Nature  has  not 
provided  all  its  creatures  with  the  capacity  for  a  happy  mar- 
riage. Plainly,  it  has  cursed  or  endowed  many  of  them  with 
strange  and  horrible  vices,  with  vast  and  self-torturing  pas- 
sions, with  immeasurable  longings  and  desires,  which  unfit 
them  for  the  proper  fulfillment  of  the  monogamic  conception 
of  the  perfect  marriage,  hence  of  the  care  of  the  ensuing 
children.  What  then  is  to  be  done?  Who  is  to  blame — Nature 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  217 

or  man?  And  if  Nature  is  to  blame,  or  God,  cannot  we  charge 
the  presumed  misery  of  the  children  up  to  Him  also? 

Personally,  I  am  not  prepared  to  admit  that  children  are 
made  miserable  or  destroyed  by  divorce  and  change.  But 
granting  that,  certainly  man  is  not  to  blame,  for  from  the  very 
beginning  he  has  been  crucified  upon  a  rood  which  is  not  of 
his  devising.  He  did  not  institute  marriage;  it  was  instituted 
for  him,  the  biologic  process  having  devised  it  long  before  he 
appeared  apparently.  I  would  gladly  have  all  living  creatures 
endowed  with  every  capacity  which  would  fit  them  for  a 
peaceful  and  contented  enjoyment  of  a  moralistic  life,  if  that 
were  intended  or  important,  but  since  in  the  vast  and  secret 
laboratory  of  Nature  alone  can  man  be  properly  outfitted  for 
the  adventure,  and  since,  obviously,  in  many  cases  he  is  not, 
I  submit  that  the  matter  of  matrimony  and  the  welfare  of  the 
ensuing  children  cannot  be  solved  by  talk  and  that  Nature 
and  its  concomitants,  change  and  divorce,  must  be  permitted  to 
take  their  free  and  unlimited  way  as  they  will.  The  great 
tides  and  forces  of  life  which  burst  upon  men  and  animals 
and  change  them  do  not  always  give  notice  that  they  are 
about  to  rise  and  change  things.  They  rise  in  their  great 
strength,  and  man,  to  his  bewilderment,  finds  himself  changing 
and  changed.  Hence  I  would  say  that  the  trouble  with  mar- 
riage is  that  in  its  extreme  interpretation  it  conflicts  with  the 
law  of  change,  or  balance  and  equation,  and  hence  suffers  a 
severe  and  seemingly  destructive  defeat. 

II 

What  would  be  the  result  were  we  generally  to  adopt 
Ellen  Key's  conception  of  marriage:  "Marriage  is  only 
moral  when  it  grows  from  an  inner  necessity,  and  not  from 
outward  pressure?" 

Very  pleasant,  I  should  say,  if  logic  and  ideal  syllogism 
ruled  in  life.  The  trouble  with  this  world  is  that  no  ideal, 


2i8  MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE 

however  eagerly  pursued,  is  guaranteed  a  happy  fruition.  You 
may  lay  down  your  formula  for  happiness  and  say  :  "Thus  and 
so  being  done  all  will  be  well,"  but  can  you  make  human 
nature  do  anything  according  to  any  one  finite  individual 
theory?  Man  does  not  make  or  regulate  Nature:  Nature  makes 
and  regulates  man,  and  She  makes  him  any  way  She  pleases— 
vile,  lovely,  strong,  weak,  simple,  complex,  and  so  on.  There 
is  no  one  theory  that  fits  all  climates  or  types  of  people.  Life 
would  be  very  dull  if  this  were  true. 

But  I  presume  by  "inner  necessity"  Ellen  Key  means  intense 
desire  plus  a  marked  affinity  of  two  people  for  each  other,  and 
if  the  union  is  for  only  so  long  as  this  endures  I  should  see  no 
drawback  to  it  whatever.  I  should  say  that  humanity  would  be 
much  better  able  to  endure  the  stresses  and  difficulties  of  the 
world  if  they  were  all  so  happily  mated,  and  indeed  there  might 
not  be  so  many  stresses  and  difficulties  to  endure.  No  doubt 
we  all  wish  that  this  would  come  true,  but  not  all  people  are 
motivated  by  either  love  or  passion.  They  would  not  marry 
for  love  if  they  could  but  rather  for  social  precedence,  material 
luxuries  and  the  like.  They  accept  children  as  a  somewhat 
unfortunate  concomitant,  and  so  you  have  the  curious  problem 
of  whether  this  state  and  its  results  are  good,  bad  or  in- 
different in  so  far  as  society  is  concerned.  For  my  part  I 
would  paraphrase  Christ's  idea  and  say:  "Render  unto  Ma- 
teriality the  things  that  are  Material,  and  to  Love  the  things 
that  are  Love's."  Then  the  world  would  remain  just  about  as 
it  is  now. 

Ill 

Would  a  succession  of  unions,  expressing  different 
phases  of  true  love,  be  of  higher  value  to  the  individual 
soul  and  to  the  life  of  the  race  than  one  unbroken  al- 
though loveless  marriage? 

My  answer  to  this  question,  based  on  my  own  individual 
temperament,  would  be  Yes,  but  I  cannot  help  speculating 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  219 

as  to  the  opinions  of  those  whose  temperaments  are  so  cool  or 
so  unemotional  that  they  can  put  social  precedence,  material 
comfort,  or  the  general  welfare  of  the  state,  as  they  see  it, 
above  affection  or  passion.  Thousands  of  people  are  by  tem- 
perament sacrificial,  one  might  almost  say  masochistic.  They 
never  put  themselves  first,  and  that  for  the  very  simple  reason 
that  their  emotions  or  desires  do  not  compel  them  so  to  do. 
The  religionist,  the  moralist  and  the  fanatic,  for  reasons  of 
order  or  material  development,  as  he  sees  them,  would  and 
does  look  upon  love  and  passion  as  a  disturbing,  unsatisfactory 
and  almost  unnecessary  element  in  life.  Passion  is  sin  or  weak- 
ness to  him,  and  the  individual  who  requires  more  than  one 
union  to  express  his  emotional  necessities  is  either  a  lunatic  or 
a  criminal.  His  first  impulse  is  to  drive  him  out  of  society, 
to  lock  him  up  and  reform  him  by  some  iron  system  of  train- 
ing; failing  this  he  will  shun  him  and  form  little  communities 
of  his  own  into  which  the  victims  of  emotion  and  passion 
must  never  venture  save  as  thieves  steal  into  a  house  at  night. 
This  last  is  well  and  as  it  should  be  no  doubt  in  his  special 
case,  but  on  the  other  hand  he  is  the  type  of  man  who  is  de- 
termined that  there  shall  be  no  divorce  for  others  very  unlike 
himself,  who  would  make  wife-desertion  a  criminal  offense  of 
the  first  order  and  who  would  almost  punish  adultery  with 
death  if  he  could.  He  is  a  puritan  soul.  He  does  not  see 
Nature  in  all  Her  subtle  ramifications  and  climatic  and  chemic 
variations,  and  he  helps  to  make  that  endless  war  between 
the  so-called  light  and  darkness  of  life — between  sin  and  virtue 
— and  these  special  phases  of  asceticism  or  temperamental 
coolness  are  the  foundation  of  all  religions  apparently. 

Such  individuals  would  argue,  for  instance,  that  the  child 
of  a  loveless  marriage  is  as  well  off  as  a  child  of  a  marriage 
of  any  other  kind,  provided  he  is  clothed  and  fed,  washed  and 
schooled  and  thoroughly  inculcated  with  the  belief  that  sex 
is  a  crime.  The  less  love  enters  into  the  child's  life  at  any 
time  the  better,  say  they.  Children  will  do  better,  make  better 


220  MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE 

men  and  women,  and  make  more  money,  if  they  do  not  love 
too  much.  Thus  stands  the  world,  divided  between  the  hot 
and  the  cold,  the  stern  and  the  tender,  the  fools  of  passion  and 
the  fools  of  material  order  and  well-being.  Is  the  one  better 
or  wiser  than  the  other?  I  do  not  know.  You  may  pay  your 
money  and  take  your  choice,  for  you  cannot  well  serve  passion 
and  materiality  at  the  same  time.  Personally  I  stand  with  the 
fools  of  love,  because  I  think  for  all  their  follies  and  errors 
and  Lear-like  ends  they  are  happier. 


IV 

//  the  answer  is  Yes,  are  the  children  better  served  by 
successive  marriages  than  by  a  home  where  parents  are 
held  together  if  not  by  love  by  a  sense  of  duty  to  their 
children? 

I  would  not  say  that  children  are,  in  the  main,  better  served 
by  successive  marriages  due  to  changes  of  temperament,  be- 
cause I  do  not  know,  but  I  can  truly  say  that  I  am  fairly  well 
satisfied,  from  my  personal  observation,  that  they  are  no  worse 
served.  In  the  first  place  the  fate  of  the  modern  child  is  not 
nearly  so  much  in  the  hands  of  individual  parents  as  it  is  in 
those  of  the  state,  the  public  schools  and  their  teachers,  the 
newspapers  and  their  editors,  the  judges  of  courts  and  public 
and  private  citizens  generally;  for  the  modern  child  can  almost 
say  to-day  that  the  state  is  both  my  father  and  my  mother  and 
it  will  take  care  of  me.  When  it  can  really  say  this  we  will  be 
much  better  off,  for  we  are  all  going  to  be  happier.  The  ex- 
tremes of  misery  in  childhood  are  going  to  be  done  away  with. 

In  the  next  place  it  is  a  part  of  my  personal  observation 
that  children  of  warring  or  troubled  homes,  where  they  are 
made  to  endure  them,  are  worse  off  than  are  those  who  have 
escaped  through  fracture  and  been  thrown  on  their  own  re- 
sources or  are  assisted  by  the  charity  of  the  state,  or  relatives, 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  221 

or  the  citizens  of  the  country  generally,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
love  or  obligation  of  one  or  both  of  the  separated  parents. 
There  is  a  deal  too  much  sentiment  attaching  to  the  home  as 
such  to-day,  sentiment  not  justified  by  facts.  All  homes  are 
not  ideal  rearing-places  for  children,  by  any  means.  Consider 
the  vast  factory  communities  everywhere,  too  easily  forgotten 
by  the  comfortable  intellectual  classes,  and  again  the  slums. 
The  homes  in  these  are,  if  one  were  to  pay  strict  attention  to 
the  moralist,  as  ideal  rearing-places  for  children  as  any  other; 
yet  we  know  that  life  offers  pits  of  horror  as  well  as  abodes 
of  sweetness  and  light  in  the  guise  of  the  modern  so-called 
home.  Again,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  home  was  made 
for  man,  not  man  for  the  home,  and  when  the  home  fails  as  a 
vehicle  of  comfort  and  aid  it  should  be  done  away  with.  It  is, 
after  all,  only  wood  or  stone  or  plaster,  an  economic  conven- 
ience at  best.  And,  anyhow,  where  the  heart  is  is  home,  though 
it  be  a  bed  under  the  open  sky  or  in  a  new  lodging-house 
every  hour.  And  this  generalization  is  not  intended  to  ex- 
clude children  either.  The  children  of  troubled  warring  homes 
live  in  a  kind  of  hell  of  temperament  from  which  they  are 
glad  enough  to  escape  as  they  grow  older,  and  from  which 
they  evolve  the  dream  of  building  something  better  for  them- 
selves, for  they  realize  the  horror  of  the  thing  they  have 
endured. 

The  basic  reason  for  destroying  many  a  home  is  that  the 
children  may  not  be  injured.  All  life  administers  its  sternest 
reprimands  to  those  who  abuse  children.  Life  loves  children. 
It  really  prefers  them  to  their  elders — the  biologic  process  so 
does.  There  is  a  public  obligation  to  them  which  we  all  ac- 
knowledge. But  this  is  not  to  say  that  all  parents  should  there- 
fore be  compelled  to  rear  their  children.  It  may  well  be 
that  they  are  not  fitted  economically  or  mentally  or  otherwise 
so  to  do.  Their  whole  duty  is,  or  might  well  be,  done  when 
they  support  them  properly.  The  state  should  do  the  rest,  for, 
as  I  have  just  suggested,  most  people  are  not  fit  to  rear  their 


222  MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE 

children;  and  I  say  this  with  the  greatest  respect  for  the  human 
and  very  charming  impulse  which  causes  them  to  wish  to.  The 
intellectual  standards  of  the  average  individual  are  not  much; 
those  of  the  state  are  in  the  main  better  and  should  and  may 
be  trusted  to  do  better  by  the  children  than  any  of  millions 
of  parents. 


Under  what  circumstance  is  divorce  justifiable? 

When  there  is  inharmony,  schism,  and  in  consequence  bitter 
contention.  I  recommend  this  question,  first,  to  the  religious 
dogmatists  of  all  creeds;  second,  to  the  anarchists,  socialists 
and  economic  thinkers  generally.  They  represent  purely  indi- 
vidual, and  to  them  justifiable,  points  of  view.  Hence  the 
world's  collection  of  dogmatic  and  radical  literature. 

VI 

What  is  the  key  to  making  marriage  do  its  work  in  the 
world? 

?  ?  ?  ?  Unchanging  love  possibly,  or  an  ingrowing  and 
harmonious  sense  of  duty.  Without  Napoleonic  skill  or  tact, 
however,  I  fear  me  much  even  then,  and  so  would  end 
with  - 


P.  S.  To  sum  it  all  up  I  should  like  to  advance  another 
theory  of  mine  in  regard  to  the  duality  of  sex.  It  is  quite 
probable  that  in  the  beginning  (biologically  speaking)  the 
sexual  progenitor  of  the  human  race  or  of  evoluted  species  con- 
tained in  itself  the  full  chemical  content  of  what  has  since  been 
evoluted  into  the  so-called  male  and  female.  Such  being  the 
case  its  chemical  responsiveness  to  the  movements  of  the  uni- 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  223 

verse,  chemical,  physical,  spiritual,  or  let  us  say  emotional,  and 
to  its  immediate  surroundings,  was  complete  in  itself.  It  was 
not  divided  into  two  sexes  and  therefore  not  dependent  on  any 
alienated  portion  of  itself  for  its  chemical,  spiritual,  emotional 
or  physical  satiation.  What  happened  to  it  individually  and 
momentarily  was  all  that  could  happen  to  it.  It  needed  no 
complementary  organism,  no  other  half,  to  make  its  under- 
standing of,  its  reaction  to,  life  complete.  That  is  not  true 
to-day.  Man  (male  or  female)  appears  to  be  individual  and 
complete,  but  it  is  an  illusion.  He  is  complete  and  separate  as 
an  organism  in  everything  save  his  chemical  responsiveness  to 
the  universe  which  requires  his  union,  not  merely  physically 
but  spiritually,  with  his  sexual  companion  to  be  complete. 
Their  union  sexually,  temperamentally,  emotionally,  intel- 
lectually and  so  on  is  required  before  a  full  measure  of  chem- 
ical responsiveness  to  life  can  be  attained  in  either.  It 
may  seem  otherwise  in  individual  cases,  but  it  is 
not  so.  Such  being  the  case  (and  a  world  of  biological  data 
might  be  here  introduced),  you  have  the  amazing  spec- 
tacle of  love  which  confounds  all  theories  of  life,  which 
laughs  at  death,  and,  in  its  fullest  expression,  defies  all  human 
theory  and  understanding,  acting  as  a  new  non-understandable 
thing,  and  letting  in  dreams,  emotions,  conditions  from  a 
deeper  world  than  any  we  know  and  whereby  this  shadow 
called  existence  is  resolved,  modified,  made  over  into  some- 
thing else  so  that  it  bears  no  resemblance  to  its  former  state. 
It  becomes  apparently  what  it  well  may  be:  a  dream  and  an 
illusion  of  beauty  or  pain  or  delight,  or  all.  Evolutionary 
progress  seems  to  be  based  on  this  non-understandable,  mys- 
terious, idealistic  reaction  and  contact  which  baffles  the  most 
searching  suggestions  and  intuitions  of  the  imagination  and 
leaves  us  awed  and  dumb  before  the  great  classics  of  desire 
and  passion. 

But  the  great  fact,  not  to  be  lost  sight  of,  is  that  love, 
complete  chemical  responsiveness  to  the  universe,  is  only  at- 


224  MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE 

tained  in  the  reunion  of  the  separated  chemical  constituents  of 
the  original  asexual  individual,  and  without  love  or  this  union 
there  is  no  full  chemical-spiritual  responsiveness  to  the  uni- 
verse. Man  does  not  soar  emotionally  into  the  empyrean 
except  in  love,  and  by  "in  love"  I  mean  when  stirred  by  the  sex 
impulse  which  makes  for  mate-seeking  and  union.  It  does  not 
follow  that  there  need  ever  be  physical  satiation  to  complete 
this  union.  Spiritual  pollination  can  spring  from  the  merest 
accidental  contact  for  a  moment  with  a  mate.  But  the  fact 
remains  that  the  greatest,  most  complete  spiritual  and  physi- 
cal responsiveness  to  the  universe  (which  after  all  is  a  mere 
matter  of  chemical  reaction)  springs  from  this  responsiveness, 
which  springs  from  love,  and  as  such  our  so-called  love  (desire, 
passionate  chemical  response,  physical  and  spiritual)  becomes 
the  most  significant  fact  in  the  universe  as  we  now  understand 
it.  For  what  is  the  universe  without  intellectual  perception  on 
our  part,  the  beholding  of  it  with  the  eye,  the  perception  of 
it  with  the  senses,  the  responsiveness  to  it  through  the  emo- 
tions? 


MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?    AN  INQUIRY 

TN  my  youth  no  country  was  so  significant  to  me  as  the 
A  United  States,  of  course,  so  wonderful,  so  fully  repre- 
sentative of  the  natural  spirit  of  aspiration  in  man,  his 
dreams,  hopes,  superior  and  constructive  possibilities.  All  that 
America  did,  could  do,  had  done,  was  in  line  with  the  noblest 
and  best  principles  in  Nature,  as  I  then  understood  Nature. 
And  I  still  believe  that  this  nation  might  be  one  of  tremendous 
significance  in  connection  with  intellectual  development,  but 
some  marked  changes  will  need  to  come  about. 

Plainly,  in  a  material  and  (socially  speaking)  internal  or- 
ganic way,  it  has  accomplished  much,  even  if  thus  far  its 
intellectual  stature  has  not  proved  so  tremendous.  We  are,  as 
I  see  it  now,  a  deeply-illusioned  people,  concerned  solely  with 
material  things  when  they  are  really  no  longer  very  important 
— certainly  not  as  much  so  as  when  the  land  was  new  and 
without  material  means — and  yet  we  remain  almost  entirely 
interested  in  such  things  when  our  minds  should  be  beginning 
to  grasp  the  wider  possibilities  of  life — still  fighting  over  beef 
and  coal  trusts  and  railroads  and  cables,  the  mere  money 
return  involved — who  is  to  have  the  control  of  them — when  we 
ought  to  be  intensely  concerned  with  the  mysteries  of  chemistry 
and  physics  and  a  more  pliable  form  of  government. 

Though  my  personal  feeling  once  was  that  America  was 
destined  to  take  high  rank,  if  not  complete  leadership,  in  the 
intellectual  world,  I  am  now  not  so  sure.  At  this  writing  it 
looks  as  though  it  might  retrograde,  and  that  speedily,  and 
give  place  to  newer  lands — newer  in  spirit,  I  mean.  It  may 
not,  but  the  signs  are  somewhat  against  it.  Our  literature  has 
plainly  developed  to  the  level  of  the  best  seller  and  thea 

225 


226     MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?  AN  INQUIRY 

stopped.  Our  art  is  sporadic,  and  with  a  few  exceptions  lym- 
phatic and  strongly  suggestive  of  older  forms.  The  futuristic 
dream  did  not  originate  here.  Our  science — well,  who  are  our 
American  scientists  anyhow?  Loeb?  Carel?  Tesla?  Bell? 
All  foreigners. 

In  architecture,  markedly  allied,  I  must  say,  to  mechanics, 
in  which  we  flourish,  we  have  done  better — yes,  and  in  any- 
thing and  everything  which  relates,  or  has,  to  mechanics,  trade, 
commercial  organization.  In  those  things,  indeed,  we  have  ap- 
peared to  do  most  astoundingly,  although  I  am  firmly  con- 
vinced that  the  boundless  and  virgin  resources  of  the  land 
have  had  as  much — more,  in  fact — to  do  with  this  than  any- 
thing else.  We  have  not  had  so  much  to  create  as  to  develop, 
and  other  countries  and  other  financiers — their  trade  geniuses 
— have  done  quite  as  well  if  not  better  in  some  instances  than 
have  we.  I  refer  to  such  concerns  and  individuals  as  the  Eng- 
lish East  India  Company,  the  Royal  Dutch  Shell,  the  Allge- 
meine  Elektrische  Gesellschaft,  the  Cunard,  Allen  and  other 
such  organizations,  to  say  nothing  of  such  individuals  as  Lord 
Strathcona,  Baron  Shibusawa,  Cecil  Rhodes,  Lord  Cowdray, 
Alfred  Harmsworth,  Sir  Thomas  Lipton,  etc. 

Indeed  the  one  thing  I  would  like  to  point  out  most  defi- 
nitely in  passing  is  this:  that  the  by  now  ingrown  idea  in  every 
average  American's  mind  that  all  of  the  most  significant  in- 
ventions and  discoveries,  mental  as  well  as  mechanical,  of  the 
last  hundred  years  or  more  are  entirely  of  American  origin  is 
not  true  by  any  means.  Far  from  it.  Those  great  prime  movers 
— for  instance,  the  steam  engine,  the  electric  motor,  and  the 
gas  engine  (as  well  as  its  natural  child,  the  automobile) — came 
to  us  from  abroad.  So  did  the  telegraph,  the  railroad,  radium, 
X-ray  photography  and — what  is  most  remarkable,  considering 
that  the  ironclad  came  from  here — every  step  in  steel  manu- 
facture. The  telephone  was  invented  by  a  Scot  who  was  twen- 
ty-five years  old  when  he  became  an  emigrant  to  our  country. 

Other  countries,  so  I  was  condescendingly  taught — Egypt, 


MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?  AN  INQUIRY    227 

Greece,  Rome,  France,  England,  Spain  (for  a  little  while)  and 
Holland — in  times  past  and  even  approximating  our  own  day, 
had  been  blessed  with  some  opportunities  and  had  done  consid- 
erable toward  fulfilling  what  I  was  taught  was  not  so  much  the 
material  as  the  spiritual  and  moral  well-being  of  man — his 
intellectual  and  therefore  his  mental  and  social  happiness. 
But  nevertheless  and  never  before,  however  (or  since),  had 
any  country  had,  or  could  have,  the  natural,  noble  and  spiritual 
impulse,  to  say  nothing  of  the  amazing  opportunities,  which 
America,  the  United  States,  was  enjoying — a  vast  and  fertile 
soil,  an  equable  climate,  engrossing  varieties  of  scenery,  a 
people  given  over  entirely  to  industry,  frugality  and  proper 
social  and  spiritual  ideals.  In  other  words  America,  according 
to  my  teachers,  was  destined  to  lead  the  world  in  thought, 
truth,  beauty,  liberty,  justice,  industry,  and  what  not  achieve- 
ment, among  other  things. 

Well,  consider  Greece  in  its  day,  faced  by  or  placed  in  a 
virgin  and  undiscovered  world.  To  the  south  and  east  Egypt 
and  Phoenicia,  to  the  north  and  west  darkness,  mystery,  an 
unexplored  world.  No  ships  but  oared  boats — not  even  the 
trireme  at  first — no  compass,  no  machinery,  no  implements  of 
agriculture,  and  consider  that  to-day  we  quote  Galen,  Hippoc- 
rates and  ^Esculapius,  its  doctors;  Euripides,  Sophocles, 
.^Eschylus  and  Aristophanes,  its  playwrights;  Herodotus  and 
Xenophon,  its  historians;  Demosthenes,  its  orator;  Homer, 
Anacreon,  Pindar  and  Sappho,  its  poets;  ^Esop  and  Helodo- 
rus,  its  writers;  Pythagoras,  Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle  and 
twenty  others,  its  philosophers — the  greatest  in  all  the  world 
— Solon,  Alcibiades,  Pericles,  Aristides,  and  ten  others,  its 
statesmen.  Also  we  marvel  at  Praxiteles,  Phidias  and  Skopas, 
its  sculptors;  Alexander,  Miltiades  and  Themistocles,  its  gen- 
erals; and  Archimedes,  its  mathematician.  Nations,  like  in- 
dividuals, are  apparently  born  with  genius,  or  they  are  not. 
They  think,  or  they  do  not ;  they  are  dull  merchants  and  trick- 
sters like  the  Carthaginians  and  Phoenicians,  or  they  are  not. 


228     MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?  AN  INQUIRY 

America  at  the  present  moment,  these  United  States,  sug- 
gests nothing  so  much  as  the  trading  Carthaginians  and  Phoe- 
nicians. We  have,  apparently,  no  soul  for  really  great  things 
intellectually,  and  yet  we  have  done  a  few  things,  too — 
fought  wars  for  our  own  integrity,  invented  a  number  of  very 
useful  machines — the  cotton  gin,  sewing-machine,  flying-ma- 
chine and  U-boat — grown  rich  and  great  in  size,  freed  the 
slaves  (which  England  did  in  her  realm  without  a  war),  lib- 
erated Cuba  (no  exploitation  since?),  struggled  with  the 
Philippine  problem,  the  Mexican  problem,  and  some  others, 
but  to  no  definite  end  as  yet,  however.  And  yet  our  deeds 
are  plainly  so  incommensurate  to  our  power.  For  we  still 
have  with  us  the  Negroes,  the  clash  and  plotting  of  various 
rival  sectarians,  easily  allayed  by  a  truly  educated  race,  the 
growth  and  almost  complete  independence  of  various  private 
interests  and  individuals — puritanism  run  all  but  mad  and  to 
the  death  of  genuine  intellectuality,  artistic  or  otherwise,  etc. 
And  yet  to  the  average  American  it  remains  a  belief  or  fact 
that  within  our  borders,  safe  under  the  control  and  guidance 
of  a  human  and  helpful  Constitution  or  form  of  government, 
are  all  the  social,  commercial  and  mental  opportunities  to 
which  an  ambitious  citizen  of  the  world  may  logically  aspire — 
freedom  to  think,  to  grow  mentally  and  in  every  other  way,  to 
acquire  tremendous  wealth  and  be  a  person  in  whom  the  in- 
ventive and  constructive  processes  of  Nature  can  take  the 
liveliest  interest.  Indeed,  whatever  may  have  befallen  him 
socially  or  economically  in  recent  years,  he  is  still  convinced 
that  he  is  absolutely  free — freer  than  the  constituent  individ- 
uals of  any  other  nation,  that  he  is  a  great  thinker  and  leader 
in  things  intellectual  and  that  America  is  the  best  and  most 
carefully  administered  country  in  the  world,  administered  en- 
tirely, or  nearly  so,  on  his  behalf. 

Well,  I  have  no  very  great  quarrel  with  that  as  a  theory, 
a  method  of  expressing  one's  private  vital  force,  but  is  it  true? 
In  my  personal  judgment,  America  as  yet  certainly  is  neither  a 


MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?  AN  INQUIRY    229 

social  nor  a  democratic  success.  Its  original  democratic  theory 
does  not  work,  or  has  not,  and  a  trust-  and  a  law-frightened 
people,  to  say  nothing  of  a  cowardly  or  suborned  and  in  any 
case  helpless  press,  prove  it.  Where  in  any  country  not  dom- 
inated by  an  autocracy  has  ever  a  people  more  pathetically  and 
ridiculously  slipped  about  afraid  to  voice  its  views  on  war, 
on  freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  the  press,  the  trusts,  religion 
— indeed  any  honest  private  conviction  that  it  has?  In  what 
country  even  less  free  can  a  man  be  more  thoroughly  brow- 
beaten, arrested  without  trial,  denied  the  privilege  of  a  hear- 
ing and  held  against  the  written  words  of  the  nation's  own 
Constitution  guaranteeing  its  citizens  freedom  of  speech,  of 
public  gathering,  of  writing  and  publishing  what  they  honestly 
feel?  In  what  other  lands  less  free  are  whole  elements  held 
in  a  caste  condition — the  Negro,  the  foreign-born,  the  Indian? 

When  one  considers  the  history  of  American  commercial 
development,  the  growth  of  private  wealth,  of  its  private 
leaders — the  Rockefellers,  Morgans,  Vanderbilts,  Goulds, 
Ryans,  et  al.,  indeed  all  the  railroad,  street-car,  land  and  other 
lords — a,  until  the  war,  practically  stationary  wage-rate,  an 
ever-increasing  rising  cost  of  living,  cold  legislative  conniving 
and  robbery  before  which  the  people  are  absolutely  helpless, 
Tammany  Hall,  the  New  York  Street  Car  Monopoly,  seven 
hundred  and  fifty-three  different  kinds  of  trusts  that  tax  peo- 
ple as  efficiently  and  ardently  as  ever  any  monarchy  or  tyranny 
dreamed  of  doing — I  should  really  like  to  know  on  what 
authority  we  base  our  plea  for  the  transcendent  merits  of 
democracy,  and  I  am  as  good  a  democrat  as  most  Americans, 
if  not  more  so. 

Government  everywhere,  in  monarchies  and  republics,  as  well 
as  tyrannies  and  despotisms,  has,  other  things  being  equal, 
always  kept  step  with  the  natural  development  of  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  mass,  a  thing  which  has  been  as  much  developed 
by  the  goads  of  tyrannies  as  by  the  petting  of  republics.  But 
could  you  ever  convince  a  full-fledged  American,  raised  on 


230     MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?  AN  INQUIRY 

Fourth  of  July  orations  and  the  wonders  and  generosities  of 
the  American  Constitution,  of  this?  For  him,  of  course,  liberty 
began  in  1776  at  Bunker  Hill  or  somewhere  near  it.  Before  that 
was  no  light  anywhere.  Since  then  we  have  gone  on — doing 
better  and  better,  making  all  men  richer  happier,  kinder,  wiser. 

But  have  we?  Is  our  land  and  its  progress  so  absolutely 
flawless?  Aside  from  love  of  country  and  individual  vanity 
which  might  make  us  want  to  think  so,  have  we  not  developed 
as  many  flaws,  anachronisms,  social  and  governmental  irri- 
tations and  oppressions  as  any  other  country?  I  call  attention 
to  the  deliberation  and  ease  with  which  the  trusts  organize 
our  legislatures,  dictate  to  the  jurists  of  the  land,  deny  even 
the  permanence  or  sacredness  of  contract  when  it  concerns 
them;  rob,  pillage  and  tax  to  their  hearts'  content  while  a 
pitiful  mass  at  the  bottom  march  to  and  fro  wondering  where 
or  to  whom  to  turn  for  relief.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  life 
here,  as  much  as  elsewhere — the  struggling  mass — is  as  sav- 
agely pushed  by  necessity  as  any  mass  anywhere.  Our  labor 
unrest  is  as  great,  our  poverty  as  keen ;  five  per  cent,  or  so  it  is 
alleged,  of  the  population  controlling  ninety-five  per  cent  of 
the  wealth;  thirteen  per  cent  of  the  population  illiterate;  at 
the  top  gorgons  of  financiers  as  fat  and  comfortable  and  dic- 
tatorial as  any  the  world  has  ever  seen  and  as  unpatriotic  and 
un-American,  in  so  far  as  its  original  theory  goes,  as  may  be. 
Worse  yet,  it  is  absolutely  true  that  ours  is,  or  was,  materially 
at  least,  a  rich  land,  boundless  in  its  opportunities  at  first, 
which  latter  fact  has  contributed  greatly  to  our  optimism  but 
not  to  our  comfort.  More  rapidly  here  than  anywhere  in  the 
world  the  rich  have  divided  themselves  from  the  poor,  and 
now  here  as  elsewhere  necessity  and  pain  are  and  will  remain 
no  doubt  the  goads  to  comparative  ease.  Yet  the  tramping 
American  when  he  utters  the  marvelous  word  democracy  be- 
lieves that  he  has  it,  and  when  he  is  not  complaining  and  the 
newspapers  tell  him  so,  believes  that  he  is  perfectly  happy. 

At  the  same  time,  considering  our  aggressive  and  progressive 


MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?  AN  INQUIRY    231 

financial  leaders — and  heaven  forbid  (on  humanitarian 
grounds,  at  least)  that  I  should  defend  them,  for  a  more 
selfish,  cruel  and  undemocratic  pack  never  lived  (consider  the 
packers,  the  street-car  corporations,  the  railroads  alone,  not  to 
mention  a  thousand  others) — there 'is  this  to  be  said,  that 
although  nearly  every  crime  in  the  decalogue  may  be  charged 
to  them,  bribery,  perjury,  murder,  even  a  total  indifference  to 
individual  welfare  (twelve  and  a  half  cents  an  hour,  for 
instance,  up  to  six  years  ago  for  hard,  grinding  day  labor  on  a 
railroad  or  in  a  canning  factory),  as  well  as  greed,  love  of 
power,  and  lust  after  it — still  much  if  not  all  of  America's 
boasted  financial  supremacy  is  due  to  them  and  to  none  other. 
We  jeer  at  John  D.  Rockefeller  at  home  perhaps,  or  Morgan, 
but  when  abroad  among  envious  strangers  who  is  first  to 
thrust  out  his  chest  and  boast  of  what  America  has  done — its 
financial  leaders,  no  less?  Who?  The  average  American?  You 
know  so.  Such  being  the  case  one  often  wonders  what  is  to 
be  done  with  a  country  or  a  people  that  can  so  readily  blow  hot 
and  cold  out  of  the  same  mouth.  Can  it  be  made  to  follow  an 
austere  democratic  program — the  sharp,  taut  socialization  of 
everything — or  will  it  succumb  to  autocratic  or  to  financial 
domination,  and  if  so,  which?  At  the  present  moment  the  air 
hums  with  the  rival  theories.  To  me  the  chief  problem  in  con- 
nection with  America,  if  it  has  one,  and  as  I  see  it,  is  that  of 
finding  itself  mentally  as  well  as  finding  a  formula  that  will 
allow  and  encourage  leadership  without  submitting  to  the 
abuses  which  in  the  past  and  even  the  present  the  latter 
tends  to  give  rise.  For  here  as  much  as  anywhere  else  the 
average  small  American  is  as  much  a  petty  tyrant  as  may  be 
found.  Consider  only  the  food  profiteer,  the  small  dealers, 
jobbers  and  wholesalers.  And  here,  as  elsewhere,  are  all  the 
petty  tyrannies  of  small  and  large  enterprises  in  regard  to 
wage-earners,  the  scorns,  the  brutalities,  the  exactions.  Can 
these  be  outrivaled  if  readily  duplicated  in  any  autocracy  or 
democracy  ruled  by  a  dictator  anywhere?  At  the  same  time, 


232     MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?  AN  INQUIRY 

is  it  not  true  that,  if  the  country  is  to  succeed  or  at  least 
progress  materially,  a  place  must  be  made  for  the  selfish,  self- 
aggrandizing  individual  either  as  leader  politically  or  as 
creator?  Will  life  go  forward  without  some  such  process  or 
opportunities  for  immense  rewards  or  honors  to  the  indi- 
vidual— the  right  to  satisfy  his  feverish  if  ridiculous  ambition 
for  supremacy?  Will  patriotism,  love  of  country,  alone  do 
it?  Can  it  be  discovered? 

What  made  Rome  great?  Senatus  populusque  Romanus. 
The  Senate  supplied  the  leadership,  the  people  the  impulse  and 
force,  which  spread  the  dominion  of  the  shepherds  of  the  Seven 
Hills  until  it  ruled  the  world  from  Scotland  to  the  Nubian 
Desert  and  the  confines  of  India.  What  is  the  secret  of  the 
Roman  church's  preeminence?  Leadership?  Autocracy?  In 
the  early  Christian  church  these  were  lacking.  Think  or  say 
what  you  will  of  its  results,  but  consider  it.  In  so  far  as  the 
early  Christians  were  concerned  they  were  all  "brethren,"  like 
the  Russians  of  to-day  and  the  citizens  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. Each  early  Christian  community  elected  its  deacons;  the 
deacons  elected  the  priests;  the  priests  elected  the  bishops; 
the  bishops  elected  the  cardinals;  and  the  cardinals  the  pope. 
Before  the  Catholic  church  began  to  attain  to  its  strength, 
however,  the  process  was  reversed:  the  pope  appointed  the 
cardinal,  he  the  bishop,  the  bishop  the  priest.  Then  the 
deacons  were  selected  by  the  priest,  in  certain  cases  some 
deacons  were  elective,  but  then  the  priest  and  deacon,  ap- 
pointed by  the  bishop,  constituted  the  majority  of  the  board. 
It  was  then,  and  then  only,  that  the  Roman  church  began  to 
flourish  truly.  The  ambition  of  man  had  full  scope,  his  vanity. 
Apparently  the  world  hitherto  has  not  been  able  to  do  or  live 
without  it.  On  the  authorization  basis  of  leadership  the  Roman 
church,  the  most  impressive  organization  in  human  history,  has 
stood  for  seventeen  centuries. 

But  take  our  own  Standard  Oil  Company.   Who  built  it? 
Who  used  to  caution  all  his  lieutenants  never  to  talk,  to  keep 


MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?  AN  INQUIRY    233 

everything  a  secret,  particularly  its  prosperity?  And  has  not 
the  blessing  of  cheap  oil  been  extended  to  all  the  world?  Who 
selected  strong,  ambitious  men  and  set  them  to  planning  the 
monopoly  of  oil  for  their  personal  and  private  benefit,  dickered 
with  the  railroads  and  cut  the  throats  of  his  rivals  via  the 
rebate?  Does  his  name  have  to  be  written  here?  Call  him  a 
scoundrel,  scoff  at  autocracy  and  high  and  mighty  plutocrats. 
After  all,  can  a  man  or  a  woman  become  a  safe  or  dictatorial 
plutocrat  without  having  something  to  offer  which  makes  his 
plutocracy  and  his  dictatorship  bearable?  Have  mere  dull 
tyrants  anywhere  ever  lasted  long?  Have  they  ever  had  brains 
enough?  Most  of  Rome's  worst  emperors  were  slain  in  any- 
where from  three  to  five  years.  The  tyrants  of  Asia  and  Africa 
last,  if  they  do,  because  the  people  are  as  dull  as  themselves, 
or  their  rule  is  agreeable  to  them. 

Every  great  business  corporation,  as  we  know,  is  built  about 
the  personality,  the  leadership,  the  autocracy,  of  one  man. 
We  hear  of  love  of  country,  of  putting  the  needs  of  the  mass, 
one's  country — all  countries — above  that  of  one's  personal  or 
private  needs.  There  are  noble  examples  no  doubt  (off-hand 
few  occur  to  me)  of  unselfish  public  sacrifice  of  many,  many 
private  lives,  but  are  they  the  rule  or  the  exception?  Does 
not  the  average  individual  now  as  heretofore  consult  his  own 
interest,  his  advantage,  his  purse,  his  survival,  his  fame? 
Once  one  is  large  and  secure,  easy  in  the  possession  of  fame, 
money,  love  even,  it  is  possible,  of  course — and  even  with  a 
grandiose  air — to  do  generously,  to  give  freely,  to  seek  the 
advantage  of  the  mass.  Scarcely  any  other  avenue  of  personal 
satisfaction  remains  open.  I  am  not  sneering;  I  am  contem- 
plating a  possibly  chemic,  physic  or  psychic  law.  Who  knows? 

Taking  the  average  individual,  with  life  (necessity,  hunger, 
drouths  of  one  kind  and  another)  pressing  upon  him  as  fiercely 
as  it  does,  and  contemplating  America  as  it  is  and  the  world 
as  it  is,  is  it  not  fair  to  ask  whether  it  is  possible  to  make 
over  man — his  ambitions,  his  soul,  into  the  likeness  of  what  is 


234     MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?  AN  INQUIRY 

suggested  by  the  average  modern  democratic  or  republican 
or  socialistic  program?  Can  he  be  adjusted  to  it?  Haven't 
we  just  had  two  thousand  years  of  an  attempt  in  one  form? 
Possibly  he  can,  but  is  it  wise  that  he  should?  Are  not  striking, 
centralizing  figures  more  important  and,  save  during  extremely 
patriotic  moments,  when  some  danger,  say,  threatens  the  na- 
tional organism  as  a  whole,  is  it  not  extremely  difficult  to  cause 
the  average  individual  to  enthuse  over  a  crowd  or  the  needs 
of  a  crowd?  And  on  the  contrary,  is  it  not  most  pathetically 
easy  to  cause  him  to  enthuse  over  a  man  or  a  woman — to  cause 
any  of  us  so  to  do?  It  would  almost  look  as  though  it  were 
Nature's  way,  would  it  not — the  love  of  the  mass  for  leaders, 
for  grandiose,  grandiloquent  figures?  Is  not  life,  in  the  main, 
personal,  individual?  Think  how  we  insist  on  identifying  God 
as  an  individual.  Will  not  such  leadership  as  was  offered  by 
Alexander,  Hannibal,  Mohammed,  Napoleon,  Washington, 
Lincoln,  always  be  popular?  The  leadership  of  lesser  or  more 
self-aggrandizing  individuals — such  as,  for  instance,  that  of  the 
late  James  J.  Hill,  of  the  Great  Northern  Railway;  E.  H. 
Harriman,  of  the  Union  Pacific;  Cornelius  Vanderbilt,  of  the 
New  York  Central;  Jay  Gould,  of  the  Missouri  Pacific;  Jay 
Cooke,  of  Civil  War  Finance;  Armour,  Field,  Leiter,  Morgan, 
or,  to  come  down  to  the  present  moment,  John  H.  Patterson, 
of  the  National  Cash  Register;  Henry  Ford,  of  the  jitney; 
F.  W.  Woolworth,  of  the  five-and-ten-cent  store — if  never  pop- 
ular, still  does  it  not  remain  necessary?  Must  not  some  one 
lead  even  in  the  home  and  all  forms  of  private  commercial 
adventure?  It  may  not  be  an  absolutely  invariable  rule,  but  is 
it  not  near  enough  to  make  it  seem  so?  I  am  not  quarreling 
with  the  possibilities  of  love,  generosity,  self-sacrifice,  public 
and  private.  We  all  hope  for  them,  do  we  not?  In  various 
minor  ways  at  least,  and  even  in  some  public  and  large  ways, 
they  exist.  But  how  about  self-interest,  cold,  savage  and  yet 
constructive  if  feverish  self-interest?  Has  that  been  abrogated? 
Indeed,  ought  not  we  Americans,  of  all  people,  learn,  and 


MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?  AN  INQUIRY    235 

learn  quickly,  that  autocracy  in  whatever  form  you  find  it — 
absolute  or  otherwise — is  never  real  autocracy,  not  absolute, 
and  that  on  the  other  hand  so-called  democracy  is  never  real 
democracy  but  always  something  tempered  by  private  autoc- 
racy in  a  thousand — nay,  in  a  million — forms?  For  after  all, 
who  tells  such  people  as  Rockefeller  and  Woolworth,  to  say 
nothing  of  kings  and  emperors — fallible  and  seeking  souls,  all 
— how,  what,  why,  they  must  do? — how  far  they  may  go? 
What  to  interest  themselves  in?  Consider  the  fall  of  the  French 
kings,  Charles  I.,  the  late  Czar.  They  deal  with  the  mass,  and 
therefore  to  a  certain  extent  they  must  respect  it.  They  cannot 
escape  it.  It  is  their  fate.  At  the  same  time,  in  attempting  so 
to  do,  to  whom  do  they  not  listen  really  for  sound  advice? — 
often  to  the  least  of  their  subjects  or  hirelings.  The  stockholders 
in  any  modern  corporation — are  they  any  more  as  to  voice  and 
weight  in  that  which  their  money  makes  possible  than  the 
people  out  in  the  street  of  a  republic  or  a  kingdom  with  their 
ultimate  veto  power?  They  elect  a  board  of  directors  as  we 
elect  a  senate,  or  a  monarchy,  a  legislature.  And  this  leader- 
ship perpetuates  itself,  or  at  any  rate  holds  things  together, 
as  does  officialdom  at  Washington,  until  a  leader  appears.  A 
weak  king  or  emperor  is  run  by  strong  men,  a  weak  President 
is  dictated  to  by  a  strong  Senate  or  House.  When  the  Roman 
Senate  was  strong  the  dictators  were  weak,  and  vice  versa.  In 
calm,  peaceful  days  leadership  is  not  necessary.  It  is  or  may 
be  a  disturbing  factor.  But  when  changes  are  coming,  when 
Nature  is  brewing  a  storm — then.  So  life,  with  its  endless  brew- 
ing of  storms  and  leaders,  ought  to  give  a  hint  to  republics  or 
democracies  or  corporate  organizations. 

And,  having  said  so  much,  is  it  not  plain  that  room  must  be 
made  always  for  the  leader,  the  passing  autocrat,  if  you  will? 
Must  he  not  be  given — if  he  have  brains — the  right  of  initia- 
tive and  power,  for  after  all  is  he  not  also  a  slave  to  life, 
chance,  labor,  the  time-spirit?  It  is  to  be  assumed,  of  course, 
that  men  shall  demand  first  that  he  command  their  admiration 


236     MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?  AN  INQUIRY 

and  loyalty,  as  he  certainly  will  if  he  is  a  real  leader.  Rome 
admired  her  Caesar,  France  her  Napoleon;  Germany  evidently 
liked  her  Kaiser,  France  her  Clemenceau,  England  her  Lloyd 
George.  They  thought  them,  apparently,  necessary  and  great 
leaders.  In  our  contest  with  Germany  we  perhaps,  for  one 
nation,  were  fighting  to  make  her  dislike  something  which  she 
'craved  and  needed,  could  not  probably  very  well  do,  without. 

The  trouble,  as  I  see  it,  is  that  too  often,  in  spite  of  all  the 
current  palaver  and  enthusiasm  of  some  for  special  individuals, 
we  have  too  little  real  or  popular  leadership.  Middleweight 
idealists  and  theorists  are  too  often  at  the  steering-gear  here  as 
well  as  elsewhere.  In  this  country  we  have  the  crowd,  the 
extraordinarily  well-educated  (or  we  think  so)  and  disciplined 
crowd,  willing  and  eager  for  leadership.  But  what  leadership? 
As  it  stands,  all  democracies  are  organized  with  elaborate  sys- 
tems of  checks — legislative,  executive — which  are  intended  to 
and  do  tie  the  hands  of  all  possible  leaders,  until  a  very,  very- 
great  emergency  arises.  In  the  ordinary  run  of  days  and  events 
only  the  ordinary  politician  or  parlor-diplomat  need  apply. 
But  when  an  extreme  necessity  calls,  these  minors  must  give 
way,  but  does  the  true  leader  always  appear  in  time?  Will  he? 
Did  the  Allies  have  a  truly  able  anti-Teutonic  leader  in  the 
recent  great  struggle?  Joffre?  Asquith?  Lloyd  George? 
Kerensky?  Wilson?  Nicholas  Romanoff? 

Our  Federal  Constitution,  theoretically  at  least,  gives  us  a 
crowd  government;  only,  owing  to  the  wholly  undemocratic 
character  of  the  American  people,  this  has  long  since  been  re- 
placed by  money  or  trust  government,  the  rule  of  the  wealthy 
by  right  of  subornation.  And  our  state  and  municipal  govern- 
ments, modeled  on  that  of  the  nation,  have  gone  the  same  way. 
Even  such  little  individuality  and  leadership  for  the  mass  as 
might  possibly  exist  under  these  conditions  is  lost  or  discarded 
nearly  every  two  or  four  years  in  the  regular  and  money-con- 
trolled changes  of  administration.  The  old  and  experienced  are 
replaced  with  the  new  and  untried.  Perhaps  under  conditions 


MORE  DEMOCRACY  OR  LESS?  AN  INQUIRY    237 

as  they  are  this  is  best.  I  am  not  sure.  But  for  efficiency, 
after  the  manner  of  the  great  successful  private  corporations, 
is  it?  Personally,  I  think  not — not  yet,  at  any  rate.  As  yet 
democracy  does  not  take  sufficient  interest  in  itself,  is  too 
indifferent  to  its  real  interests  and  needs.  It  is  too  easy-going, 
not  sufficiently  self  compelling.  Every  one  wants  to  be  his  own 
boss  and  to  be  a  great,  undemocratic,  individual  success,  hence 
there  is  very  little  true  effective  organization  outside  private 
institutions  and  what  they  compel  in  a  public  way.  We  make 
no  provision  for  the  continuation  of  leadership  even  under 
emergency. 

Personally,  I  think  the  defect  cannot  forever  go  on  un« 
remedied.  Democracy  must  do  at  least  as  well  as  autocracy,  01 
it  ought  to  shut  up  shop.  And  if  it  cannot  obtain  the  efficiency 
exemplified  by  the  private  corporataion  it  will,  and  it  will 
deserve  to.  Perhaps  our  recent  sad  experiences  in  meeting  the 
expanded  demands  on  governmental  efficiency  should  show  us 
how  to  lay  a  new  basis  for  that  efficiency  in  modifications  oi 
our  governmental  structure.  But  will  they?  What  I  think  ia 
that  more  autocracy,  behind  which  should  be  a  livelier  sense 
of  power  and  control  on  the  part  of  the  people,  should  come 
into  our  democracy,  or  our  democracy  will  really  cease  to  be. 
The  present  drift  toward  money  control  cannot  go  unchecked. 
Our  leaders  will  either  become  much  more  forceful,  and  the 
mass  more  watchful  and  jealous,  as  it  should  be,  or  we  will 
have  no  democracy  of  any  kind.  There  is  scarcely  any  now. 
Congress  should  be  used  more  against  the  President  and  the 
Supreme  Court,  and  the  latter  against  both,  only  the  judges 
should  be  plainly  responsible  to  the  people,  closely  and  fear- 
somely  beholden  to  them — as  much  so,  at  any  rate,  as  they 
now  are  to  the  corporations  and  wealth.  Both  the  leaders  and 
their  weapons — the  laws — should  become  more  vigorous.  De- 
mocracy will  have  to  step  up,  and  step  lively.  Then  will  it 
be  any  more  of  a  democracy  than  some  of  the  older  and  more 
historic  autocracies  and  monarchies?  Will  it? 


THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE 

The  Serpent  to  Eve,  Genesis  iii,  3:5:  "For  God  doth  know 
that  in  the  day  ye  eat  thereof"  (the  Tree  of  Knowledge)  "then 
your  eyes  shall  be  opened  and  ye  shall  be  as  gods,  knowing 
good  and  evil" 

Jehovah  to  the  Serpent,  Genesis  iii,  14515:  "Because  thou 
hast  done  this"  (urged  Eve  to  seek  wisdom  by  eating  of  the 
Fruit  of  the  Tree  of  Knowledge)  "thou  art  cursed  above  all 
cattle,  and  every  beast  of  the  field;  upon  thy  belly  shalt  thou 
go,  and  dust  shalt  thou  eat  all  the  days  of  thy  life;  and  I  will 
put  enmity  between  thee  and  the  woman,  and  between  thy  seed 
and  her  seed;  it  shall  bruise  thy  head  and  thou  shalt  bruise 
his  heel" 

Jehovah  to  Eve,  for  attempting  to  obtain  wisdom  via  eating 
the  Fruit  of  the  Tree,  Genesis  iv,  16:  "/  will  greatly  multiply 
thy  sorrow  and  thy  conception;  in  sorrow  shalt  thou  bring 
forth  children;  and  thy  desire  shall  be  to  thy  husband  and  he 
shall  rule  over  thee" 

Jehovah  to  Adam,  because  of  his  following  the  advice  of 
Eve:  "Because  thou  hast  hearkened  unto  the  voice  of  thy  wife 
and  hast  eaten  of  the  Tree,  cursed  is  the  ground  for  thy  sake; 
in  sorrow  shalt  thou  eat  of  it  all  the  days  of  thy  life;  thorns 
and  thistles  shall  it  bring  forth  to  thee,  and  thou  shalt  eat  the 
herb  of  the  field.  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread 
till  thou  return  unto  the  ground" 

238 


THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE          239 

"Prometheus  (forethought),  son  of  the  Titan  lapetus  and 
Clymene,  and  brother  of  Atlas,  Meno2tius  and  Epimetheus 
(after-thought),  is  represented  as  the  creator  of  man,  out  of 
earth  and  water,  and  his  great  benefactor,  having  given  him, 
in  spite  of  Zeus  who  was  apparently  opposed  to  it  all,  a  portion 
of  all  the  qualities  possessed  by  the  other  animals.  He  also 
stole  fire  from  heaven  in  a  hollow  tube,  and  taught  mortals  all 
useful  arts.  In  order  to  punish  Prometheus  for  this,  Zeus  gave 
Pandora  to  Epimetheus,  his  brother,  in  consequence  of  which 
diseases  and  sufferings  of  every  kind  befell  mortals.  He  also 
chained  Prometheus  to  a  rock  on  Mount  Caucasus,  where  dur- 
ing the  daytime  an  eagle  consumed  his  liver,  which  was  re- 
stored each  succeeding  night.  Prometheus  was  thus  exposed 
to  perpetual  torture;  but  Hercules  (strength)  killed  the  eagle 
and  with  the  consent  of  Zeus,  who  in  this  way  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  allowing  his  son  to  gain  immortal  fame,  delivered  the 
sufferer." 

Smaller  Classical  Dictionary. 

The  significance  of  these  several  references  to  and  quota- 
tions from  the  supposed  creative  power  of  the  elder  pagan 
world  is,  if  anything,  that  man  is  a  waif  and  an  interloper  in 
Nature  (or  things  celestial  or  intelligent),  a  machine  or  toy, 
created  by  something  which  desires  to  use  him  or  work  through 
him  in  some  way,  with  no  essential  power  to  make  his  own 
way  and  no  "right"  to  seek  either  knowledge  or  wisdom,  lest, 
in  the  words  attributed  to  Jehovah,  his  Creator,  in  Genesis, 
he  becomes  "as  one  of  us,"  a  minor  god,  for  instance,  as  the 
Creator  via  this  phrase  writes  himself  down  to  be;  not  the 
Supreme  Ruler  of  the  Universe,  by  any  means.  And  in  this 
phrase  ("one  of  us")  is  contained  a  hint  of  a  possible  condition 
or  order  in  the  universe  which,  since  the  Christian  era,  has  been 
put  aside  as  untrue,  namely,  that  the  Creator  of  man,  our  two 
billion  two-legged  citizens  stalking  this  earth,  may  be  but  (to 
use  a  very  crude  and  yet  for  that  reason  understandable  de- 


240          THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE  7 

scription)  a  "side-line"  manufacturer,  as  it  were,  or  a  lower- 
level  competitor  for  life  and  pleasure,  along  with  many  others 
of  his  kind — Creators  or  "Gods"  or  avatars  of,  let  us  say, 
mosquitos,  flies,  bulls,  cats,  dogs;  in  other  words  the  specific 
and  singular  Creator  of  some  one  thing  as  opposed  to  other 
Gods  or  powers  who  might  well  be  creators  of  other  things 
of  equal  rank.  And  these  "Gods,"  in  turn,  should  one  choose  to 
follow  the  thought,  might  well  be  the  special  product  of 
some  greater  "God"  or  manufacturer  or  Creator  who  is  finding 
a  rather  peculiar  expression  through  them  and  their  crea- 
tions in  turn;  also  the  various  rivalries  which  exist  between 
man  and  the  lower  animals  for  the  possession  of  the  earth 
might  thereby  be  explained  or  have  something  to  do  with  that. 
The  thought  is  not  new.  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  co-dis- 
coverer with  Darwin,  Lamarck  and  Spencer  of  the  theory  of 
evolution,  has  pointed  out  that  "the  organizing  mind  which 
actually  carries  out  the  development  of  the  life  world  need 
not  be  infinite,  need  not  be  what  is  usually  meant  by  the  term 
God  or  Deity.  The  main  cause  of  the  antagonism  between 
religion  and  science  seems  to  me  to  be  the  assumption  by  both 
that  there  are  no  existences  capable  of  taking  part  in  the  work 
of  creation  other  than  blind  forces  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
infinite,  eternal,  omnipotent  God  on  the  other.  The  apparently 
gratuitous  creation  by  theologians  of  a  hierarchy  of  angels  and 
archangels,  with  no  defined  duties  but  those  of  attendants  and 
messengers  of  the  Deity,  perhaps  increases  this  antagonism." 
He  then  proceeds  to  develop  a  theory  of  his  own  in  which  (I 
quote)  "the  vast,  the  infinite  chasm  between  ourselves  and  the 
Deity  is  to  some  extent  occupied  by  an  almost  infinite  series 
of  grades  of  beings,  each  successive  grade  having  higher  and 
higher  powers  in  regard  to  the  origination,  the  development  and 
the  control  of  the  universe."  He  goes  on  to  show  how  this  might 
be  done  by  them — all  to  the  one  end:  namely,  the  creation  and 
preparation  of  man  via  experiences  here,  persumably  for  a 
higher  place  in  the  control  of  the  universe  at  large,  always 


THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE          241 

under  the  Supreme  Ruler  of  course  and  his  lesser,  yet  in  so  far 
as  man  is  concerned  greater,  agents.  In  other  words,  under 
these  sub- Gods. 

The  idea  is  interesting  only  it  does  not,  although  it  may  be 
too  much  to  say  that  it  cannot,  explain  the  endless  bickering 
and  chaffering  in  the  universe  at  large,  the  utter  failure  of 
various  movements  and  types  here  on  earth  and  apparently 
elsewhere,  the  astonishing  selection  of  so  minute  a  mote  in  the 
material  universe  as  this  particular  planet  for  the  purpose 
of  working  out  a  higher  type  of  assistant  or  worshiper  of  God 
Himself.  It  may  be  true,  but  the  idea  is  a  little  fantastic  and 
suggests  the  labors  of  an  ignorant  and  yet  hopeful  being  en- 
deavoring to  account  for  himself,  his  presence,  in  the  best  way 
he  can. 

To  my  humble  way  of  thinking,  the  ancient  Greeks  and  the 
various  theogonies  of  the  ancient  pagan  world  (Egyptian,  Chal- 
dean, Hindu)  were  at  least  as  plausible  in  their  apprehension 
of  a  troublesome  disorder.  The  Old  Testament  and  all  other 
forms  of  ancient  pagan  literature  suggest  the  general  and  very 
natural  conception,  based  on  the  evidence  of  life  itself,  that 
various  gods  were  or  are  contending  via  various  forms  of  life 
(animal,  vegetable  and  mineral)  for  some  form  of  expression 
here  on  earth,  and  that  the  various  things  which  they  make 
(or  the  one  thing  which  each  makes,  its  image  and  likeness 
perhaps)  is  opposed  to  all  others  here.  Pagan  thought  reeked 
with  the  feeling  of  contests  between  gods  or  creators  or  con- 
trollers of  this,  that  and  the  other,  and  in  the  Sinaitic  inter- 
pretation of  life  just  quoted  we  see  something  of  the  same 
thing;  also  in  what  small  consideration  man  was  held  by  his 
alleged  special  Creator.  Evidently  the  conclusion  reached  by 
the  thinking  elders  of  the  pagan  world  was  that  man,  in  so 
far  as  his  own  special  Creator  was  concerned,  was  viewed  with 
sinister  opposition  by  the  power  which  made  him.  It  did 
not  want  him  to  amount  to  anything.  Indeed  he  was  very, 
very  plainly  conscious  of  the  inimical  attitude  of  Nature,  or 


242          THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE 

rather  man's  especial  God  or  Creator,  toward  him.  He  was  not 
as  yet  deluded  by  the  Christian  phantasm  that  man  is  made 
in  the  image  and  likeness  of  his  Creator,  who  is  highly  con- 
siderate of  him,  and  that  the  world  was  made  for  man,  or  that 
because  of  faith,  good  deeds,  special  forms  of  self-abnegation 
and  self-effacement  he  is  to  be  reserved  to  eternal  bliss  here- 
after although  there  is  no  especial  reward  for  him  here  and 
now.  And  this  is  excellent  indeed  as  illustrating  a  force  or 
forces  of  a  creative  turn  which  might  wish  to  use  man  as  man 
uses  any  other  minor  implement  for  the  accomplishment  of 
any  purpose  he  may  have,  but  not  very  complimentary  to 
him  as  an  illustration  of  his  own  free  and  creative  powers. 

And,  curiously,  modem  chemistry  with  its  various  tropisms 
— helio,  magnetic,  stereo  and  chemo — together  with  its  legal 
part,  physics,  does  little  better  by  him.  Already  they  tend 
to  show  that  he  is  merely — and,  what  is  worse,  accidentally  so 
— an  evoluted  arrangement  of  attractions  and  repulsions,  ar- 
ranged by  chemicals  and  forces  which  desire  or  cannot  escape 
whorls  or  epitomes  of  complicated  motions  and  emotions  or 
attractions  which  take  the  odd  forms  presented  by  men  and 
animals. 

But  aside  from  this  the  most  effective  illustration  of  the 
essential  nothingness  of  man  is  his  plain  individual  weakness 
here  and  now  as  contrasted  with  his  mass  ideals  and  the  huge 
vanity  or  tendency  toward  romance  which  causes  him  to  wish 
to  seem  to  be  more  than  he  really  is  or  can  ever  hope  to  be. 
For  plainly  every  life,  in  the  last  analysis,  however  useful  to 
an  assumed  and  carefully  directing  Creator,  or  however  suc- 
cessful from  a  momentary  analysis  it  may  appear,  is  a  failure. 
We  hear  of  that  curious  thing,  "a  successful  life."  It  is  in  the 
main  a  myth,  a  self-delusion.  How  could  there  possibly  be 
success  for  a  watery,  bulbous,  highly  limited  and  specially  func- 
tioned creature,  lacking  (in  the  case  of  man,  for  instance) 
many  of  the  superior  attributes  of  other  animals — wings,  a 
sense  of  direction,  foreknowledge  and  the  like — and  manufao 


THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE          243 

tured  every  forty  years  by  hundreds  of  millions,  cen- 
tury in  and  century  out,  made  apparently  not  in  the 
image  and  likeness  of  anything  superior  to  himself  but  in 
that  of  an  accidentally  compelled  pattern,  due  to  an  accidental 
arrangement  of  chemicals,  his  every  move  and  aspiration  anti- 
cipated and  accounted  for  by  a  formula  and  an  accidentally 
evolved  system  long  before  he  arrives,  and  he  himself  born 
puling,  compact  of  vain  illusions  in  regard  to  himself,  his 
"mission,"  his  dominant  relation  to  the  enormous  schemes  of 
Nature,  and  ending,  if  "life"  endures  so  long,  in  toothless 
senility  and  watery  decay,  dissolution.  And  in  addition  some 
have  scientifically  placed  the  creative  as  well  as  the  generative 
period  of  man  between  his  twentieth  and  fortieth  years — 
twenty  years!  Others  generously  extend  it  to  fifty  and  even 
sixty.  Few  venture  to  carry  it  beyond  that.  At  seventy  old 
Nestor  drools  and  repeats  his  fables  of  his  few  years  and  many 
troubles.  At  fifty,  even  forty-five,  most  men  are  busy  re- 
counting the  deeds,  adventures  and  creations  of  their  earlier 
years! 

To  me  the  most  astonishing  thing  in  connection  with  man 
is  this  same  vanity  or  power  of  romanticising  everything  relat- 
ing to  himself,  so  that  whereas  in  reality  he  is  what  he  is,  a 
structure  of  brief  import  and  minute  social  or  any  other  form  of 
energy,  left  by  his  loving  Creator  to  contest  in  the  most  drastic 
and  often  fatal  way  with  thousands,  one  might  almost  say  mil- 
lions of  inimical  powers  and  only  significant  really  in  so  far  as 
he  or  it  is  interlocked  with  others  in  some  larger  unity,  either 
(for  illustration)  as  a  soldier  in  an  army  or  its  delegated  com- 
mander or  as  a  delegated  or  acknowledged  representative  of 
some  moving  or  mass  or  race  impulse,  still  he  has  this  astonish- 
ing power  of  viewing  himself  as  a  tremendous  force  in  himself,  a 
god,  a  hero,  an  enduring  and  undying  figure  of  glory  and 
beauty — as  significant  almost  as  the  Creator  Himself,  in  whose 
image  and  likeness  he  is  supposed  to  be  madel 

The  wonder!    The  beauty  even! 


244          THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE 

Sometimes  I  think  all  this  is  the  almost  inevitable  result  of 
something  inherently  weak  but  with  one  clear  power:  that  of 
visualizing  or  perceiving  strength  in  other  things  and  so,  by  con- 
trast, its  own  weakness;  and,  by  reflex  action  merely,  attempt- 
ing to  salve  itself  against  its  own  ineffectiveness  by  imagining 
itself  to  be  that  which  it  may  never  be:  a  victor,  a  Colossus 
bestriding  the  world,  an  undying  potentate,  ruling  forever,  and 
so  gaining  strength  to  go  on.  For  individuals  are  never  mas- 
ters in  any  remarkable  way.  They  merely  and  at  best  borrow 
or  direct  the  energies  of  many,  and  in  the  main  to  no  important 
result  to  themselves.  A  Napoleon  slaves  and  starves  to  the  end 
that  he  may  die  on  St.  Helena  and  bring  considerable  profit  to 
many  who  never  heard  of  him  and  care  not  at  all.  A  Caesar 
toils  endlessly  at  organization  and  the  development  and  preser- 
vation of  Rome,  only  to  be  stabbed  to  death  in  his  fifty-sixth 
year,  practically  unrewarded.  A  Hannibal  slaves  for  Carthage, 
enduring  endless  hardships,  only  to  die  by  his  own  hand.  The 
category  might  be  extended  indefinitely.  And  yet  the  world 
is  full  of  laudations  of  the  powers  of  men,  their  satisfactions, 
their  vast,  vast  rewards  and  glories;  while  so  many  decayed 
steles  and  temple  doorways,  and  data  unending,  bear  testi- 
mony to  their  utter  material  and  subsequent  spiritual  futility. 

And  when  I  say  this  I  wish  to  make  it  perfectly  clear  that  I 
am  by  no  means  confusing  the  race  with  the  individual,  or  vice 
versa.  What  a  race  may  do,  and  what  man  may,  are  two  very 
different  things.  The  race,  representing  the  totality  of  active 
creations  and  pushed  on  by  dynamic  forces  from  below,  may 
be,  and  in  so  far  as  one  can  guess  is,  a  huge  success.  The  God 
or  force  or  forces  using  man  in  various  aspects  here  and  now 
(two  billion  men  at  the  present  moment)  may  be  and  no  doubt 
is  finding  self-expression  through  and  in  him  and  may  well  be 
tremendously  satisfied  with  the  result.  But  in  what  way  does 
that,  or  can  it,  add  to  the  comfort  or  bliss  of  the  particular  in- 
dividual? Endlessly  repeated,  an  oyster-like  copy  of  every 
other  man  that  has  ever  been,  a  mere  minute  portion  of  some- 


THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE          245 


thing  the  significance  or  import  of  which  he  can  not  even  sur- 
mise. And  within  the  race  itself  one  need  only  think  of  the 
various  types — preacher,  actor,  lawyer,  doctor,  merchant,  thief, 
writer,  poetic,  artist,  prize-fighter,  all  very  much  alike  and  all 
repeated  and  repeated  ad  infinitum — to  see  how  impossible  the 
idea  of  individuality  is.  The  very  idea  of  extreme  individu- 
ality, even  under  the  most  special  and  favored  circumstances, 
is  seen  to  be  all  but  an  impossibility.  We  are  at  best,  even  in 
our  arts  and  highest  forms  of  special  adaptations,  copies  of 
things  which  are  and  have  been  as  common  as  pig-tracks — 
generals,  philosophers,  statesmen,  society  grande  dames  and 
the  like  not  exempted.  Over  and  over  and  over  we  appearr 
one  and  all,  even  our  exact  gestures,  smiles,  glances.  Who  has 
not  seen  it  in  so  short  a  space  as  three  generations?  And  we 
speak  of  individuality,  of  special  destinies! 

Herein  lies  the  pathos,  and  this  is  the  outstanding  fact,  that 
man  is  essentially  a  creation  or  mechanism,  accidental  or  not 
as  you  wish,  of  a  force  or  forces  which  in  so  far  as  any  one  can 
determine  is  or  are,  far  more  than  he  in  his  wildest  flights  of 
fancy  suspects,  the  thing  which  he  most  craves  to  be,  indi- 
vidual, enduring,  but  of  which  he  is  only  a  part  and  of  which 
he  is  constantly  seeking  more — life.  The  thing  which  makes 
and  repeats  over  and  over  ad  infinitum  and  is  two  billions  of 
men,  or  anything  else  into  which  it  chooses  to  form  itself,  may 
be  thought  of  as  having  life,  personality,  success  and  the  like, 
but  as  for  individual  man  or  any  of  its  minute  atoms!  Indeed 
man  might  as  well  think  of  the  minute  atoms  of  his  internal 
mechanism  as  having  success,  fame,  a  great  life  or  future,  as 
himself.  His  day,  like  theirs,  is  measured  by  a  minute  frac- 
tion of  time  and  labor  and  energy,  and  so  is  nothing.  Quite 
obviously  there  is  something  which  is  to  man  what  man  in 
his  entirety  as  an  individual  is  to  the  least  ion  or  molecule  of 
his  inner  cosmos:  a  thing  of  so  vast  a  magnitude  comparatively 
as  to  be  as  far  outside  his  reckoning  as  must  he  be  to  the  ion  of 
his  inner  body.  And  as  for  size  or  force  and  import,  that 


246          THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE 

which  creates  him  is  as  far  above  him  as  he  is  above  the  ion. 
Indeed,  although  man,  in  his  capacity  or  proportion  as  an 
individual  and  as  contrasted  with  the  least  of  the  electrons 
of  his  being,  is  beyond  computation  for  size,  yet  viewed  again 
in  contrast  with  his  external  world  he  sinks  into  a  mere  fum- 
bling, briefly-ended  mote  and  tool.  Like  the  ion  of  his  inner 
cosmos,  in  this-vast  etheric  or  ionic  something  which  is  out- 
side of  him  and  which  we  see  blazing  as  worlds  or  suns  or  ex- 
isting as  immeasurable  space,  he  is  too  minute  and  too  brief  to 
be  discussed.  Even  the  great  earth  which  he  treads  with  so 
much  pride  is  to  this  external  thing  quite  as  minute  as  man's 
electron  is  to  him;  and  yet  his  relationship  even  to  this  is 
almost  as  nothing.  For  on  this  so  minute  thing  which,  side- 
really  speaking,  is  as  nothing,  he  appears  nevertheless,  insect- 
wise,  by  the  billion  every  forty  (or  whatever  the  average 
life  of  man  may  be)  years,  to  say  nothing  of  innumerable  other 
forms  which  have  the  ion  or  the  molecule  as  the  base  of  their 
material  presence  or  structure.  Still  he  permits  himself  to 
believe  that  he  is  something,  and  in  facing  all  has  the  stupen- 
dous or  fortunate  ignorance  to  write  himself  down  as  Lord, 
Master,  Great  Guider  of  Things  Terrestrial! 

One  of  the  things  which  might  modify  this  supreme  romantic 
estimate  of  himself,  if  such  a  thing  were  either  desirable  or 
possible,  would  be  an  even  slightly  technical  examination  of 
the  process  by  which  he  arrives,  as  well  as  the  extreme  sim- 
plicity of  the  mechanical  and  chemical  formula  by  which, 
throughout  endless  ages,  he  and  all  his  fellows  have  been 
created.  There  is  no  longer  any  vast  mystery  about  it;  we  are 
even  getting  relatively  close  to  the  secret,  or  could  if  we  were 
permitted  to  go  on  undisturbed  for  a  period  by  wars,  let  us 
say,  or  religious  and  educational  illusions  and  furies  (put  for- 
ward by  what?  How  brought  about?),  a  persistent  inherent 
mass  opposition  to  thought  and  change  in  man  himself.  What 
subtle  force  ever  invented  that  as  a  race  quieter? 

As  biologists  and  anthropologists  present  man  and  his  allied 


THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE          247 

species,  the  original  type  structure  on  which  all  are  more  or  less 
modeled  is  not  so  wonderful:  two  eyes,  two  ears,  two  nostrils, 
two  feet  and  two  hands  or  four  feet,  two  of  them  antecedents 
of  the  present  hands ;  or  two  feet  and  two  wings,  the  latter  suc- 
cessors of  former  feet;  a  lung  or  air-breathing  system,  not  un- 
like that  of  any  tree  or  plant;  a  root  or  arterial  system,  modi- 
fied to  meet  various  conditions  and  situations  as  in  birds,  fishes, 
moles;  a  nervous  or  sensory  system  of  an  allied  character — no 
marked  diversity  in  anything  indeed,  and  all  brought  about  by 
the  inescapable  chemical  and  physical  reactions  and  compul- 
sions of  seemingly  blind  forces,  as  Crile  and  Loeb  have  shown. 
Even  now  chemists  and  physicists  are  at  work  upon  the  bal- 
ances and  equations  involved  in  the  mechanical  and  chemical 
construction  of  man,  the  leverage  by  which  he  moves,  the  com- 
binations which  control  his  form  or  aspect,  as  well  as  the 
chemical  combinations  which  can  induce  motion  or  self-pro- 
pulsion. Even  as  to  his  so-called  thought  how  close  are  the 
Behaviorists  to  the  material  mechanics  which  produce  it?  His 
thoughts  also  are  apparently  little  more  than  compelled  reac- 
tions of  one  chemical  upon  another  which  he  can  no  more 
escape  than  can  he  his  form  or  motions.  The  one  unsolved 
mystery  apparently  is  why  a  machine  so  easily  made  and  con- 
trolled should  be  able  to  speculate  as  to  the  reason  for  his 
being  or  to  worry  over  it. 

And  yet  just  here  another  interesting  fact  stands  out,  and 
that  is  that  whether  or  not  he  is  a  machine,  Nature,  or  his 
Creator,  appears  to  be  quite  definitely  opposed  to  his  finding 
out  about  himself  or  even  to  his  delving  into  the  matter,  and 
throughout  recorded  science  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  least 
willingness  on  the  part  of  Nature  or  the  life  constructing  forces 
to  yield  a  single  fact  of  any  kind  without  a  struggle.  Man  has 
fumbled  and  stumbled,  dying  by  billions  in  one  erroneous  way, 
or  another,  until  at  last,  by  mere  chance  apparently,  he  has 
stumbled  upon  one  helpful  fact  or  another.  It  is  as  if  the  fable 
of  Prometheus  or  that  other  of  Adam  and  Eve  were  true.  The 


248          THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE 

seekers  after  knowledge  of  any  kind  have  almost  invariably  been 
fought  or  their  work  brought  to  nothing,  and  even  where  man 
has  apparently  proven  victorious  or  where  he  has  seemingly  been 
aided  only  that  has  been  yielded  which  has  tended  to  further 
him  as  an  ignorant  and  yet  useful  machine,  never  as  a  thinker. 
No  one  who  has  tended  to  throw  a  clear  light  on  the  internecine 
struggles  of  Nature  Herself,  Her  cruelties  and  brutalities,  has 
prospered.  If  one  doubts  this  he  has  only  to  consider  the 
fumbling,  haphazard  progress  of  man,  his  warring  notions  as 
to  his  source  and  import,  his  strange  aberrant  evolution  and  the 
persistent  and  discouraging  hindrances  cast  in  the  way  of  his 
intellectual  evolution;  i.  e.,  the  rise  of  impossible  and  even  ridic- 
ulous leaders  and  religious  theories — Christianity,  Shintoism, 
Mohammedism — and  the  arrival  of  such  dark  figures  as  Attila 
(self-styled  "the  scourge  of  God"),  Alaric,  and  Mohammed 
with  his  houris'  dream,  upon  the  scene  of  fairly  acceptable  in- 
tellectual conditions.  The  deaths  of  endless  prying  inventors, 
their  pursuit  by  the  religionists  in  darker  ages,  the  periodic 
rise  of  -isms  and  world-sweeping  folderol,  political  and  other 
notions,  all  seem  to  point  to  but  one  thing:  Nature's  indiffer- 
ence if  not  opposition  to  man's  tendency  to  develop  intelligence 
and  desire  to  know — if  such  a  thing  can  be  assumed,  for  it 
cannot  be  proved.  For  since  when  has  the  dulness  of  the  mass, 
or  man,  his  ignorance  or  indifference,  apparently  calculated 
and  conditional,  not  stood  their  ground  against  the  overtures 
of  intelligence,  science,  the  arts,  philosophy?  Nothing  flour- 
ishes on  earth  so  well  as  vain  theory.  Energetic  thought  is  all 
but  taboo.  False  dreams  and  false  hopes  are  invariably  en- 
couraged by  apparently  some  chemical  or  mechanical  .condi- 
tion in  the  so-called  brain  of  man  himself.  It  is  scarcely  L  > 
much  that  he  dare  not  as  that  he  cannot. 

And  if  he  should  but  stop  to  consider  this  cloak-and-suit- 
model  repetition  of  himself  previously  suggested,  this  system  or 
pattern  after  which  he  and  all  the  endless  decillions  which  have 
preceded  and  will  follow  him  are  made,  do  you  suppose  h  i 


THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE          249 

could  exact  anything  which  suggested  individuality  or  personal 
persistence  as  a  spirit  or  thought — self-generated  thought — out 
of  it?  Is  one  button  wiser  or  much  more  important  than  any 
other,  or  at  all  more  likely  to  outlast  another  spiritually?  Is 
it  in  any  way  essential  that  it  should?  The  original  model 
for  the  button  might  be  important,  but  as  for  the  endless 
copies!  Indeed  in  the  whole  program  of  repetition,  in  so  far 
as  man  or  any  of  the  animals  or  insects  or  of  matter  itself  is 
concerned,  there  is  but  one  ray  of  light  or  hope,  and  that  is 
that  the  ion  or  electron  of  which  all  and  everything  appears 
to  be  composed  may  after  all  be  the  only  true  base  or  unit 
of  expression  of  the  so-called  controlling  spirit  or  force  or 
forces  of  life,  not  the  various  contesting  combinations  of  them, 
and  that  this  ionic  sea  or  mass,  while  controlled  by  the  neces- 
sity of  division  and  recombination,  if  it  wishes  to  express  itself 
at  all  ("The  Kinetic  Theory,"  J.  C.  Vogt),  is  still  so  large  and 
so  involute  in  its  creative  processes  as  to  be  necessarily  more 
or  less  indifferent  to  any  form  of  ionic  self-expression  or  com- 
bination that  might  occur  under  or  with  it.  So  that  the  mere 
fact  that  groups  or  volumes  of  itself  (ions)  should  combine  for 
any  purpose  or  generate  themselves  into  any  special  forms  of 
life  (via  combination,  of  course) — suns,  planets,  animals,  races, 
nations,  and  their  special  developments  again — might  be  to 
it  a  matter  of  absolutely  no  consequence.  What  matter  if  the 

':  electrons  of  some  minute  part  of  itself  should  organize  and  set 
up  some  special  sun  or  planet  or  race  of  individuals,  so  long 
as  they  did  not  prove  troublesome  to  the  rest  of  the  ionic  sea? 
Supposing  there  are  vast  galaxies  of  self-generated  suns  in 
space — endless  space,  composed  of  but  a  part  of  the  total  ionic 

OPmass — so  long  as  they  are  a  mere  negligible  nothing  to  the  to- 
tality of  enduring  force;  what  of  it?  If  such  were  the  case  it 
is  entirely  conceivable  that  anything  might  arise  for  a  time, 

'any  system  of  suns  or  race-life  on  suns  or  planets,  and  also  the 
domination  of  one  organized  group  of  ions  over  another,  but  all 

01  subject  nevertheless  in  the  course  of  time  and  according  to  some 


250         THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE 

equational  and  inescapable  law  to  the  totality  of  primary  ionic 
or  universal  force. 

In  that  case  such  a  statement  as  occurs  in  Genesis  iii.  5, 
would  be  plain  enough.  Some  self-generated  combination  of 
ions  looking  upon  itself  as  a  creator  in  its  own  right  (for  a 
period  anyhow),  and  having  sub-invented  man  for  some  pur- 
pose of  its  own,  self-expression  or  comfort,  or  the  use  of 
other  enslaved  ions  to  do  its  bidding,  might  say  just  that 
("For  God  doth  know,"  etc.) ;  and  it  would  be  true. 

On  the  other  hand  man,  via  the  force  of  the  numbers  of  the 
ions  collected  within  himself,  his  race,  and  by  degrees  so  gain- 
ing in  numbers,  and  so  power  or  intelligence  equal  to  that  of  the 
ions  which  had  originally  enslaved  him,  might  rise  and  question 
of  this  other  elemental  ionic  combination  its  right  to  lordship 
over  him.  And  again,  by  reason  of  laissez  faire  conditions  which 
apparently  hold  throughout  all  Nature  and  force,  he  would  then 
be  able  to  overthrow  this  higher  ionic  combination  and  so  set  up 
a  lordship  of  his  own — as  in  some  ways  even  now  he  appears  to 
be  doing.  For  one  need  only  observe  his  growing  command  of 
machinery  and  the  apparently  indifferent  streams  of  ionic 
energy  everywhere  moving,  upon  the  backs  of  which  or  to  the 
streams  of  which  he  attaches  his  wires  and  dynamos  and  engines 
and  permits  them  to  do  a  part  of  his  work  for  him,  in  order  to 
see  how  this  might  be.  For  if  we  are  not  an  illustration  of  one 
ionic  combination  using  another,  what  are  we?  And  if  that 
which  is  above  us  is  not  a  combination  of  ions  using  us,  what 
is  it?  Science  has  no  other  answer.  At  the  same  time,  of 
course,  man  would  be  fought,  as  apparently  he  is  being  fought 
now,  attacked  and  delayed  by  the  powers  which  hitherto  have 
made  and  are  still  using  him.  In  that  case  the  remarks  of  Je- 
hovah in  Genesis  would  be  explicable  enough. 

And  I  here  venture  this  prediction,  based  on  this  idea,  that 
in  case  man  is  ever  capable  of  awaking  from  his  dream  of 
spiritual  enslavement  and  considers  the  higher  creative  reality 
which  makes  suns  and  his  own  immediate  God  as  well,  and 


THE  ESSENTIAL  TRAGEDY  OF  LIFE          251 

sees  also  that  he  is  the  victim  of  a  purely  gratuitous  overlord- 
ship  of  which  he  is  no  more  than  a  hypnotic  victim,  he  may 
well  be  able  to  invent  crawling  and  winged  things  with  some 
primary  system  of  nervous  response  and  intelligence,  quite  as 
he  was  invented  in  the  first  place,  which  will  serve  him  hi  some 
dull,  hopeless  way,  just  as  he  himself  now  serves  a  higher 
power.  Already  he  has  invented  most  complicated  machinery, 
and  what  else  may  he  not  invent?  For  ions  are  ions,  wherever 
found,  in  whatever  form  of  life,  amoeba,  or  man  or  sun,  and 
they  are  everywhere.  Obviously  they  may  not  rule  save  in 
combination  and  by  force,  one  combined  group  seizing  on  other 
uncombined  and  therefore  helpless  ions  so  to  do,  and  is  that 
not  our  method  in  all  phases  of  life  here  on  earth  now?  But 
once  the  ions  of  men  finding  themselves  in  combination,  by 
whatsoever  process  contrived,  it  may  not  be  so  easy  longer  to 
control  them.  Rebellions  may  occur,  and  probably  will.  The 
great  thing  seems  to  be  to  get  enough  of  them  in  combination. 
Time  perhaps  is  the  great  factor  in  all  these  things.  At  the 
same  time  it  might  be  true,  and  at  present  so  appears,  that 
the  generative  group  of  ions  which  evolved  man  and  all  of  his 
so-called  superior  combinations  and  results  here,  might  be  so 
jealous  of  its  own  creative  skill  in  this  respect  that,  seeing  man 
or  his  ionic  content  attempting  to  gain  knowledge  of  how  to 
proceed  and  do,  it  might  at  once  set  out  to  undo  him.  The 
fable  of  Prometheus  and  of  Adam  and  Eve  may  not  be  so  im- 
possible, after  all.  Yet  should  his  "God"  not  be  able  to  com- 
pletely destroy  him  he  may  yet  well  imitate  his  Creator  and 
create. 

But  will  he  be  allowed  so  to  do? 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

I  DO  not  pretend  to  speak  with  any  historic  or  sociologic 
knowledge  of  the  sources  of  the  American  ethical,  and  there- 
fore critical,  point  of  view,  though  I  suspect  the  origin,  but  I 
am  at  least  convinced  that,  whatever  its  source  or  sense,  it 
does  not  accord  with  the  facts  of  life  as  I  have  noted  or  experi- 
enced them.  To  me  the  average  or  somewhat  standardized 
American  is  an  odd,  irregularly  developed  soul,  wise  and  even 
froward  in  matters  of  mechanics,  organizations  and  anything 
that  relates  to  technical  skill  in  connection  with  material  things, 
but  absolutely  devoid  of  true  spiritual  insight,  correct  knowledge 
of  the  history  of  literature  or  art,  and  confused  by  and  mentally 
lost  in  or  overcome  by  the  multiplicity  of  the  purely  material 
and  inarticulate  details  by  which  he  finds  himself  surrounded. 

As  a  boy  in  the  small  towns  of  the  middle  West  I  had  no 
slightest  opportunity  to  get  a  correct  or  even  partially  correct 
estimate  of  what  might  be  called  the  mental  A  B  abs  of  life.  I 
knew  nothing  of  history,  and  there  was  not  a  book  in  any  of  the 
schools  which  I  attended,  labeled  either  history  or  science  or 
art,  containing  the  least  suggestion  of  the  rationale  which  I 
subsequently  came  to  feel  to  be  relatively  true,  or  at  least  ac- 
ceptable to  me.  If  I  remember  correctly,  in  the  history  of  the 
world  which  was  labeled  Swinton's,  the  defeat  of  Napoleon, 
not  his  career,  was  pointed  out  as  having  had  a  great  moral  if 
not  Christian  value  to  the  world.  His  end  on  St.  Helena,  not 
the  Code  Napoleon  or  the  hieratic  and  ultra-economic  arrange- 
ment of  his  material  forces,  was  supposed  to  have  achieved 
something  for  society!  Similarly  Socrates  and  his  death  were 
descanted  upon  as  having  almost  a  religious  if  not  a  Christian 

252 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA  253 

import.  His  death  was  painted  as  having  been  brought  about 
by  his  low  private  deeds,  not  his  higher  moral  views.  The  true 
significance  of  the  man  as  illustrated  by  the  exact  details  of  his 
life  were  utterly  ignored. 

Because  my  father  was  a  Catholic  and  I  was  baptized  in  that 
faith,  I  was  supposed  to  accept  all  the  dogma,  as  well  as  the 
legends,  of  the  Church  as  true.  In  the  life  about  me  I  saw 
flourishing  the  Methodist,  the  Baptist,  the  United  Brethren, 
the  Christian,  the  Congregationalist,  the  what-not  churches, 
each  representing,  according  to  its  adherents,  the  exact 
historic  and  truthful  development  and  interpretation  of  life 
or  the  world.  As  a  fourteen-  or  fifteen-year-old  boy  I  listened 
to  sermons  on  hell,  where  it  was,  and  what  was  the  nature  of  its 
torments.  As  rewards  for  imaginary  good  behavior  I  have 
been  given  colored  picture  cards  containing  exact  reproduc- 
tions of  heaven!  Every  newspaper  that  I  have  ever  read,  or 
still  read,  has  had  an  exact  code  of  morals  by  the  light  of 
which  one  may  detect  at  once  Mr.  Bad  Man  and  Mr.  Good 
Man  and  so  save  oneself  from  the  machinations  of  the  former! 
The  books  which  I  was  advised  to  read,  and  for  the  neglect  of 
which  I  was  frowned  upon,  were  of  that  nai've  character  known 
as  pure.  One  should  read  only  good  books — which  meant  of 
course  books  from  which  any  reference  to  sex  had  been  elimin- 
ated, and  what  followed  as  a  natural  consequence  was  that  all 
intelligent  interpretation  of  character  and  human  nature  was 
immediately  discounted. 

A  picture  of  a  nude  or  partially  nude  woman  was  sinful; 
a  statue  equally  so.  The  dance  in  our  home  and  our  town  was 
taboo.  The  theater  was  an  institution  which  led  to  crime,  the 
saloon  a  center  of  low,  even  bestial  vices.  The  existence  of  such 
a  thing  as  an  erring  or  fallen  woman,  let  alone  a  house  of  pros- 
titution, was  a  crime,  scarcely  a  fact  to  be  considered.  There 
were  forms  and  social  appearances  which  we  were  taught  to 
wear,  quite  as  one  wears  a  suit  of  clothes.  One  had  to  go  to 
church  on  Sunday  whether  one  wished  to  or  not.  It  was  con- 


254  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

sidered  good  business,  if  you  please,  to  be  connected  with  some 
religious  organization;  and,  by  the  same  token,  this  commer- 
cialized religiosity  was  transmuted  into  glistening  virtue.  We 
were  taught  persistently  to  shun  most  human  experiences  as 
either  dangerous  or  degrading  or  destructive.  The  less  you 
knew  about  life  the  better;  the  more  you  knew  about  the  fic- 
tional heaven  and  hell  ditto.  People  walked  about  in  a  kind 
of  sanctified  maze  or  dream,  hypnotized  or  self-hypnotized  by 
an  erratic  and  impossible  theory  of  human  conduct  which  had 
grown  up  heaven  knows  where  or  how,  and  had  finally  cast  its 
amethystine  spell  over  all  America,  if  not  over  all  the  world. 

Now  I  have  no  particular  quarrel  with  this  save  that  it  is  so 
impossible,  so  inane.  In  my  day  there  were  apparently  no 
really  bad  men  who  were  not  known  as  such  to  all  the  world, 
or  at  least  quickly  detected,  and  few  if  any  good  men  who 
were  not  sufficiently  rewarded  by  the  glorious  fruits  of  their 
good  deeds  here  and  nowl  Success — mere  commercial  success 
— was  in  its  way  all  but  synonymous  with  greatness.  Positive- 
ly, and  I  stake  my  solemn  word  on  this,  until  I  was  between 
seventeen  and  eighteen  I  had  scarcely  begun  to  suspect  any 
other  human  being  of  harboring  the  erratic  and  sinful  thoughts 
which  occasionally  flashed  through  my  own  mind. 

At  that  time  I  was  just  beginning  to  suspect  that  some  of  the 
things  which  had  been  laid  down  to  me  by  one  authority  and 
another  were  not  true.  All  so-called  good  men  were  not  neces- 
sarily good,  I  was  beginning  to  suspect,  and  all  bad  men  not 
hopelessly  bad.  There  were  things  in  cities  and  town  which, 
as  I  was  coming  to  see,  did  not  accord  with  the  theories  of 
the  particular  realm  from  which  I  had  sprung  and  seemed  to  in- 
dicate another  kind  of  human  being,  different  from  the  type 
among  which  I  had  been  raised.  My  mother,  as  I  even  then 
saw,  admire  her  as  I  might,  was  a  mere  woman,  not  an  angel; 
my  father  a  mere,  mere  crotchety  man.  My  sisters  and  brothers 
were  individuals  such  as  I  soon  began  to  find  were  breasting 
the  stormy  waters  of  life  outside,  and  not  very  different  from 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA  255 

all  other  brothers  and  sisters,  not  perfect  souls  set  apart  from 
life  and  happy  in  the  contemplation  of  each  other's  perfections. 
In  short,  I  was  beginning  to  find  the  world  a  seething,  stormy, 
bitter,  gay,  rewarding  and  destroying  realm,  in  which  the  strong 
and  the  subtle  and  the  charming  and  the  magnetic  were  apt 
to  be  victors,  and  the  weak  and  the  homely  and  the  ignorant 
and  the  dull  were  apt  to  be  deprived  of  any  interesting  share, 
not  because  of  any  innate  depravity  but  rather  because  of  the 
lacks  by  which  they  were  handicapped  and  which  they  could 
not  possibly  overcome. 

And  there  were  other  phases  which  previously  I  had  scarcely 
suspected.  The  race  was  to  the  swift  and  the  battle  to  the 
strong.  All  great  successes,  as  I  was  beginning  to  discover  for 
myself,  were  relatively  gifts,  the  teachings  of  the  self  helpers 
and  virtue  mongers  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  Artists, 
singers,  actors,  policemen,  statesmen,  generals,  were  born  and 
not  made.  Sunday-school  maxims,  outside  of  the  narrowest 
precincts,  did  not  apply.  People  might  preach  one  thing  on 
Sunday  or  in  the  bosom  of  their  families  or  in  the  meeting- 
places  of  conventional  social  groups,  but  they  did  not  practice 
them  except  under  compulsion,  particularly  in  the  marts  of 
trade  and  exchange.  Mark  the  phrase  "under  compulsion."  I 
admit  a  vast  compulsion  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  indi- 
vidual desires  or  tastes  or  impulses  of  individuals.  That  com- 
pulsion springs  from  the  settling  processes  of  forces  which  we 
do  not  in  the  least  understand,  over  which  we  have  no  control 
and  in  whose  grip  we  are  as  grains  of  dust  or  sand,  blown 
hither  and  thither,  for  what  purpose  we  cannot  even  suspect. 
Politics,  as  I  found  in  working  as  a  newspaper  man,  was  a  low 
mess;  religion,  both  as  to  its  principles  and  its  practitioners,  a 
ghastly  fiction  based  on  sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing; 
trade  was  a  seething  war  in  which  the  less  subtle  and  the  less 
swift  or  strong  went  under,  while  the  more  cunning  succeeded; 
the  professions  were  largely  gathering-places  of  weaklings, 


256  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

mediocrities  or  mercenaries,  to  be  bought  by,  or  sold  to,  the 
highest  bidder. 

The  individual,  as  I  found,  was  trying  to  do  one  thing:  make 
himself  happy  principally;  life  was  plainly  trying  to  do  another, 
or  at  least  what  it  was  doing  involved  no  great  concern  for  the 
welfare  of  any  particular  individual.  He  might  live,  he  might 
die;  he  might  be  well  fed,  he  might  be  hungry;  he  might, 
accidentally  or  by  taking  thought,  ally  himself  with  successful 
movements,  or  he  might  inherently,  by  some  incapacity  or 
fatality  of  disposition,  involve  himself  in  the  drifts  toward 
failure;  he  might  be  weak,  he  might  be  strong;  he  might  be 
wise,  he  might  be  dull  or  narrow.  Life  in  the  large  thrashing 
sense  in  which  we  see  it  to  move  about  us  cared  no  whit  for 
him.  Why  so  many  failures?  I  was  constantly  asking  myself; 
so  many  early  deaths,  so  many  accidents,  crass  and  unex- 
plained? Why  so  many  fires?  So  many  cyclones?  So  many 
destroying  epidemics?  So  many  breaks  in  health  or  in  trade 
or  by  reason  of  vice  or  crime  or  mere  increasing  age  and  mood? 
So  many,  many  individuals  going  down  into  the  limbo  of  noth- 
ingness or  failure,  so  few  attaining  to  that  vast  and  lonesome 
supremacy  which  all  were  seeking?  Why?  Why?  I  persist- 
ently asked  myself;  and  I  have  yet  to  find  the  answer  in  any 
current  code  of  morals  or  ethics  or  the  dogma  of  any  religion. 

If  you  should  chance  to  consult  a  Methodist,  a  Baptist,  a 
Presbyterian,  a  Lutheran,  or  any  other  current  American  sec- 
tarian, on  this  subject  you  would  find  (which  after  all  is  a  dull 
thing  to  point  out  at  this  day  and  date)  that  his  conception 
of  the  things  which  he  sees  about  him  is  bounded  by  what  he 
was  taught  in  his  Sunday  School  or  his  church,  or  what  he  has 
stored  up  or  gathered  from  the  conventions  of  his  native  town. 
(His  native  town!  Kind  heaven!)  And  although  the  world 
has  stored  up  endless  treasures  in  chemistry,  sociology,  history, 
philosophy,  still  the  millions  and  millions  who  tramp  the  streets 
and  occupy  the  stores  and  fill  the  highways  and  byways  and 
the  fields  and  the  tenements  have  no  faintest  knowledge  of  this, 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA  257 

01  of  anything  else  that  can  be  said  to  be  intellectually  "doing." 
Tiiey  live  in  theories  and  isms,  and  under  codes  dictated  by  a 
church  or  a  state  or  an  order  of  society  which  has  no  least 
regard  for  or  relationship  to  their  natural  mental  development. 
The  darkest  side  of  democracy,  like  that  of  autocracy,  is  that  it 
permits  the  magnetic  and  the  cunning  and  the  unscrupulous 
among  the  powerful  individuals  to  sway  vast  masses  of  the 
mob,  not  so  much  to  their  own  immediate  destruction  as  to  the 
curtailment  of  their  natural  privileges  and  the  ideas  which  they 
should  be  allowed  to  entertain  if  they  could  think  at  all — and 
incidentally  to  the  annoying  and  sometimes  undoing  of  indi- 
viduals who  have  the  truest  brain  interests  of  the  race  at  heart: 
vide  Giordano  Bruno!  Jan  Huss!  Savonarola!  Tom  Paine! 
Walt  Whitman !  Edgar  Allan  Poe ! 

For  after  all  the  great  business  of  life  and  mind  is  life.  We 
are  here,  I  take  it,  not  merely  to  moon  and  vegetate,  but  to  do 
a  little  thinking  about  this  state  in  which  we  find  ourselves,  or 
at  least  to  try.  It  is  perfectly  legitimate,  all  priests  and 
theories  and  philosophies  to  the  contrary,  to  go  back,  in  so  far 
as  we  may,  to  the  primary  sources  of  thought,  i.  e.,  the  visible 
scene,  the  actions  and  thoughts  of  people,  the  movements  of 
Nature  and  its  chemical  and  physical  subtleties,  in  order  to 
draw  original  and  radical  conclusions  for  ourselves.  The  great 
business  of  the  individual,  if  he  has  any  time  after  struggling 
for  life  and  a  reasonable  amount  of  entertainment  or  sensory 
satiation,  should  be  this  very  thing.  He  should  question  the 
things  he  sees — not  some  things,  but  everything — stand,  as  it 
were,  in  the  center  of  this  whirling  storm  of  contradiction  which 
we  know  as  life,  and  ask  of  it  its  source  and  its  import.  Else 
why  a  brain  at  all?  If  only  one  could  induce  or  enable  a 
moderate  number  of  the  individuals  who  pass  this  way  and 
come  no  more  apparently  to  pause  and  think  about  life  and 
take  an  individual  point  of  view,  the  freedom  and  individuality 
and  interest  of  the  world  might  be  greatly  enhanced.  We  com- 
plain of  the  world  as  dull.  If  it  is  so,  lack  of  thinking  by  indi- 


258  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

viduals  is  the  reason.  But  to  ask  the  poor,  half-equipped  men- 
tality of  the  mass  to  think,  to  be  individual — what  an  anachro- 
nism! You  might  as  well  ask  of  a  rock  to  move  or  a  tree  to  3y. 

Here  in  America,  by  reason  of  an  idealistic  Constitution 
which  is  largely  a  work  of  art  and  not  a  workable  system,  you 
see  a  nation  dedicated  to  so-called  intellectual  and  spiritual 
freedom,  but  actually  devoted  with  an  almost  bee-like  industry 
to  the  gathering  and  storing  and  articulation  and  organization 
and  use  of  purely  material  things.  In  spite  of  all  our  base- 
drum  announcement  of  our  servitude  to  the  intellectual  ideals 
of  the  world  (copied  mostly,  by  the  way,  from  England)  no 
nation  has  ever  contributed  less,  philosophically  or  artistically 
or  spiritually,  to  the  actual  development  of  the  intellect  and  the 
spirit.  We  have  invented  many  things,  it  is  true,  which  have 
relieved  man  from  the  crushing  weight  of  a  too-grinding  toil, 
and  this  perhaps  may  be  the  sole  mission  of  America  in  the 
world  and  the  universe,  its  destiny,  its  end.  Personally  I  think 
it  is  not  a  half  bad  thing  to  have  done;  the  submarine  and  the 
flying  machine  and  the  armored  dreadnought,  no  less  than  the 
sewing-machine  and  the  cotton-gin  and  the  binder  and  the 
reaper  and  the  cash  register  and  the  trolley-car  if  not  the  tele- 
phone, may  prove  in  the  end,  or  perhaps  already  have  proved, 
as  significant  in  breaking  the  chains  of  the  physical  and  mental 
slavery  of  man  as  anything  else.  I  do  not  know. 

One  thing  I  do  know  is  that  America  seems  profoundly  in- 
terested in  these  things,  to  the  exclusion  of  anything  else.  It 
has  no  time,  you  might  almost  say,  no  taste,  to  stop  and  con- 
template life  in  the  large,  from  an  artistic  or  a  philosophic 
point  of  view.  Yet  after  all,  when  all  the  machinery  for  lessen- 
ing man's  burdens  has  been  invented  and  all  the  safeguards  for 
his  preservation  completed  and  possibly  shattered  by  forces 
too  deep  or  superior  for  his  mechanical  cunning,  may  not  a 
phrase,  a  line  of  poetry,  or  a  single  act  of  some  half-forgotten 
tragedy  be  all  that  is  left  of  what  we  now  see  or  dream  of  as 
materially  perfect?  For  is  it  not  thought  alone,  of  many 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA  259 

famous  and  powerful  things  that  have  already  gone,   that 
endures? — a  thought  most  often  conveyed  by  art  as  a  medium? 

But  let  me  not  become  too  remote  or  fine-spun  in  my 
conception  of  the  ultimate  significance  of  art  itself.  The  point 
which  I  wish  to  make  is  just  this :  that  in  a  land  so  devoted  to 
the  material,  although  dedicated  by  its  Constitution  to  the 
ideal,  the  condition  of  intellectual  freedom,  let  alone  art,  is 
certainly  anomalous.  Your  trade  and  your  trust  builder,  most 
obviously  dominant  in  America  at  this  time,  is  of  all  people 
most  indifferent  to,  or  most  unconscious  of,  the  ultimate  and 
pressing  claims  of  mind  and  spirit  as  expressed  by  art.  If  you 
doubt  this  you  have  only  to  look  about  you  to  see  for  what  pur- 
poses, to  what  end,  the  increment  of  men  of  wealth  and  ma- 
terial power  in  America  is  most  devoted.  Stuffy,  tasteless 
houses  crowded  with  stuffy,  tasteless  antiques,  safety  deposit 
vaults  stuffed  with  securities,  the  having  and  holding  of  purely 
material  values  always.  In  proof  of  which  I  may  add  that  we 
have  something  like  twenty-five  hundred  colleges  and  schools 
and  institutions  of  various  kinds,  largely  furthered  by  the  money 
of  American  men  of  wealth,  and  all  presumably  devoted  to  the 
development  of  the  mental  equipment  of  man  (or  so  we  are 
told),  yet  nearly  all  set  with  flinty  firmness  against  anything 
which  is  related  to  truly  radical  investigation,  or  thought,  or  ac- 
tion, or  art.  The  inculcation  of  morality  and  patriotism  are  even 
now  laid  down  as  the  true  task  and  province  of  the  so-called 
schools  of  higher  learning  by  the  educators  themselves,  or  at 
least  the  presidents  of  most  of  the  leading  institutions — not  the 
getting  of  knowledge  at  any  cost,  patriotic  or  other. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  spite  of  the  American  Constitution 
and  the  American  oratorical  address  on  all  and  sundry  occa- 
sions, the  average  American  school,  college,  university,  institu- 
tion, is  as  much  against  the  development  of  the  individual,  in 
the  true  sense  of  that  word,  as  any  sect  or  religion.  What  it 
really  wants  is  not  an  individual  but  an  automatic  copy  of 
some  altruistic  and  impossible  ideal,  which  has  been  formulated 


260  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

here  or  elsewhere  under  the  domination  of  Christianity  or  some 
other  ism.  I  defy  you  to  read  any  American  college  or  univer- 
sity prospectus  or  address  or  plea  which  concerns  the  purposes 
or  ideals  of  these  institutions  and  not  agree  with  me.  They  are 
not  after  individuals;  they  are  after  types  or  schools  of  individ- 
uals, all  to  be  very  much  alike,  all  to  be  like  themselves.  And 
what  type?  Listen.  I  know  of  an  American  college  professor  in 
one  of  our  successful  State  universities  who  had  this  to  say  of 
the  male  graduates  of  his  institution,  after  having  watched  the 
output  for  a  number  of  years:  "They  are  all  right,  quite  satisfac- 
tory as  machines  for  the  production  of  material  wealth  or  for 
the  maintenance  of  certain  forms  of  professional  skill,  but  as 
for  ideas  of  their  own  or  being  creators  or  men  with  the  normal 
impulses  and  passions  of  manhood  they  do  not  fulfill  the 
requisite  in  any  respect.  They  are  little  more  than  types, 
machines,  made  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  their  college.  They 
do  not  think;  they  cannot,  because  they  are  held  hard  and 
fast  by  the  iron  band  of  convention.  They  are  afraid  to  think. 
They  are  moral  young  beings,  Christian  beings,  model  beings, 
but  they  are  not  men  in  the  creative  sense,  and  the  large  ma- 
jority will  never  do  a  thing  other  than  work  for  a  corporation 
in  a  routine  unindividual  way,  unless  by  chance  or  necessity 
the  theories  and  the  conventions  imposed  or  generated  by  their 
training  and  surroundings  are  broken,  and  they  become  free, 
independent,  self -thinking  individuals." 

In  this  connection  I  might  say  I  know  of  one  woman's  col- 
lege, an  American  institution  of  the  highest  standing,  which 
since  its  inception  has  sent  forth  into  life  some  thousands  of 
graduates  and  post-graduates  to  battle  life  as  they  may  for 
individual  supremacy  or  sensory  comfort.  They  are  (or  were) 
supposed  to  be  individuals  capable  of  individual  thought,  pro- 
cedure, invention,  development;  yet  out  of  all  of  them  not  one 
has  even  entered  upon  any  creative  or  artistic  labor  of  any 
kind.  Not  one.  (Write  me  for  the  name  of  the  college,  if 
you  wish.)  There  is  not  a  chemist,  a  physiologist,  a  botanist, 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA  261 


a  biologist,  an  historian,  a  philosopher,  an  artist,  of  any  kind 
or  repute  among  them;  not  one.  They  are  secretaries  to  cor- 
porations, teachers,  missionaries,  college  librarians,  educators 
in  any  of  the  scores  of  pilfered  meanings  that  may  be  attached 
to  that  much  abused  word.  They  are  curators,  directors,  keep- 
ers. They  are  not  individuals  in  the  true  sense  of  that  word; 
they  have  not  been  taught  to  think;  they  are  not  free.  They 
do  not  invent,  lead,  create;  they  only  copy  or  take  care  of,  yet 
they  are  graduates  of  this  college  and  its  theory,  mostly  ultra 
conventional,  or,  worse  yet,  anaemic,  and  glad  to  wear  its  col- 
lar, to  clank  the  chains  of  its  ideas  or  ideals — automatons  in  a 
social  scheme  whose  last  and  final  detail  was  outlined  to  them 
in  the  classrooms  of  their  alma  mater.  That,  to  me,  is  one 
phase,  amusing  enough,  of  intellectual  freedom  in  America. 

But  the  above  is  a  mere  detail  in  any  chronicle  or  picture  of 
the  social  or  intellectual  state  of  the  United  States.  Turn,  for 
instance,  if  you  will,  to  the  legislative  and  judicial  phases  of 
our  Government — those  grand  realms  in  which  only  states- 
men and  judicial  students  of  our  economic  and  social  condition 
are  supposed  to  move  and  rule,  and  what  do  we  find? 

As  long  ago  as  1875  Ernst  Haeckel,  the  eminent  German 
scientist,  complained  that  the  judges  and  legislatures  of  his  day 
and  country  had  "but  a  superficial  acquaintance  with  that  chief 
and  peculiar  object  of  their  activity — the  human  organism  and 
its  most  important  function,  the  human  mind,"  and  that  they 
had  no  time  for  anything  save  "an  exhaustive  stud}'  of  beer  and 
wine  and  the  noble  art  of  fencing."  If  that  could  be  said  of 
intellectual  Germany  in  his  day  how  much  more  and  worse  could 
be  judicated  of  the  American  jurist  and  legislator  in  America 
to-day.  The  shabby  mess  which  finance  and  trade  rivalries 
make  of  our  laws  and  our  halls  of  legislation — the  mental 
equipment  of  the  average  politician,  his  henchmen,  the  legis- 
lator and  the  judge — the  hall  boys  of  finance,  and  at  the  same 
time  of  religious  and  therefore  arbitrary  moral  dogma  which 
they  have  become,  the  petty  ignoramuses  we  see  on  every  hand 


262  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

legislating  for  the  people  or  interpreting  the  laws  once  they  are 
thus  formulated!  Haeckel  wrote  sadly  of  the  judges  and  law 
enactors  in  his  day:  "No  one  can  maintain  that  their  condition 
to-day  is  in  harmony  with  our  advanced  knowledge  of  this 
world" — and,  certainly,  in  America  to-day,  fifty  years  later, 
not  a  week  passes  in  which  we  do  not  read  of  legislative  deeds 
and  legal  decisions  which  make  a  thinking  man  sigh.  Consider 
the  slavish  acceptance  of  religious  and  moral  and  financial 
dictation  from  self-interested  and  equally  ignorant  people,  the 
running  here  and  there  to  find  what  is  temporarily  expedient — 
what  will  satisfy  or  quiet  the  public  for  an  hour;  what  will 
keep  them  from  losing  their  petty  jobs — by  the  politicians  and 
legislators  and  so-called  statesmen  and  judges;  the  complete 
ignorance  of  every  congressman  and  senator  and  state  legisla- 
tor and  judge  and  lawyer  as  to  the  commonest  facts  of  biology, 
psychology,  sociology,  economics,  and  history!  One  president, 
Roosevelt,  admitted  that  he  could  in  no  way  understand  eco- 
nomics. Yet  once  the  average  country  or  city  law  student  has 
mastered  a  few  hundred  paragraphs  of  law  he  is  ready  to  hire 
out  to  the  nearest  corporation,  to  legislate  for  the  people,  to 
prefix  "Hon."  to  his  name  and  set  up  in  business  as  a  judge  or 
a  statesman. 

On  the  other  hand,  and  in  the  very  teeth  of  all  this,  no 
country  in  the  world,  at  least  none  that  I  know  anything 
about,  has  such  a  peculiar,  such  a  seemingly  fierce  determina- 
tion, to  make  the  Ten  Commandments  work.  It  would  be 
amusing  if  it  were  not  pitiful,  their  faith  in  these  binding  re- 
ligious ideals.  I  have  never  been  able  to  make  up  my  mind 
whether  this  springs  from  the  zealotry  of  the  Puritans  who 
landed  at  Plymouth  Rock,  or  whether  it  is  indigenous  to  the 
soil  (which  I  doubt  when  I  think  of  the  Indians  who  preceded 
the  white) ,  or  whether  it  is  a  product  of  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion, compounded  by  such  idealists  as  Paine  and  Jefferson  and 
Franklin  and  the  more  or  less  religious  and  political  dreamers . 
of  the  pre-Constitutional  days.  Certain  it  is  that  no  such  pro- 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA  263 

found  moral  idealism  animated  the  French  in  Canada,  the 
Dutch  in  New  York,  the  Swedes  in  New  Jersey,  or  the  mixed 
French  and  English  in  the  extreme  South  and  New  Orleans. 

The  first  shipload  of  white  women  ever  brought  to  America 
was  sold,  almost  at  so  much  a  pound.  They  were  landed  at 
Jamestown.  The  basis  of  all  the  first  large  fortunes  was  laid, 
to  speak  plainly,  in  graft — the  most  outrageous  concessions  ob- 
tained abroad.  The  history  of  our  relations  with  the  American 
Indians  is  sufficient  to  lay  any  claim  to  financial  or  moral  vir- 
tue or  worth  in  the  white  men  who  settled  this  country.  We 
debauched,  then  robbed  and  murdered  them;  there  is  no  other 
conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  facts  covering  that  relation- 
ship as  set  down  in  any  history  worthy  the  name.  As  regards 
the  development  of  our  land,  our  canals,  our  railroads,  and  the 
vast  organizations  supplying  our  present-day  necessities,  their 
history  is  a  complex  of  perjury,  robbery,  false  witness,  extor- 
tion, and  indeed  every  crime  to  which  avarice,  greed  and  ambi- 
tion are  heir.  If  you  do  not  believe  this,  examine  the  various 
congressional  and  State  legislative  investigations  which  have 
been  held  on  an  average  of  every  six  months  since  the  Govern- 
ment was  founded,  and  see  for  yourself.  The  cunning  and  un- 
scrupulousness  of  American  brains  can  be  matched  against  any 
the  world  has  ever  known,  not  even  excepting  the  English. 

But  an  odd  thing  in  connection  with  this  financial  and  social 
criminality  is  that  it  has  been  consistently  and  regularly  ac- 
companied, outwardly  at  least,  by  a  religious  and  a  sex-puri- 
tanism  which  would  be  scarcely  believable  if  it  were  not  true. 
I  do  not  say  that  the  robbers  and  thieves  who  did  so  much  to 
build  up  our  great  commercial  and  social  structures  were  in 
themselves  always  religious  or  puritanically  moral  from  the 
sex  point  of  view,  although  in  regard  to  the  latter  they  most 
frequently  made  a  show  of  so  being;  but  I  do  say  that  the 
communities  and  the  States  and  the  nation  in  which  they  were 
committing  their  depredations  have  been  individually  and  col- 
lectively, in  so  far  as  the  written,  printed  and  acted  word  are. 


264  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

concerned,  most  loud  in  their  pretensions.  Why?  I  have  a 
vague  feeling  that  it  is  the  American  of  Anglo-Saxon  origin 
only  who  has  been  most  vivid  in  his  excitement  over  re- 
ligion and  morals  where  the  written,  printed,  acted  or  painted 
word  was  concerned,  yet  who  at  the  same  time,  and  perhaps 
for  this  very  reason,  was  failing  or  deliberately  refusing  to  see 
the  contrast  which  his  ordinary  and  very  human  actions  pre- 
sented to  all  this.  Was  he  a  hypocrite?  Is  he  one? 

Your  American  of  Anglo-Saxon  or  other  origin  is  actually  no 
better,  spiritually  or  morally,  than  any  other  creature  of  this 
earth,  be  he  Turk  or  Hindu  or  Chinese,  except  from  a  materi- 
ally constructive  or  wealth-breeding  point  of  view,  but  for  some 
odd  reason  he  thinks  he  is.  The  only  real  difference  is  that, 
cast  out  or  spewed  out  by  conditions  over  which  he  had  no  con- 
trol elsewhere,  he  chanced  to  fall  into  a  land  overflowing  with 
milk  and  honey.  Nature  in  America  was,  and  still  is,  kind 
to  the  lorn  foreigner  seeking  a  means  of  subsistence,  and  he 
seems  to  have  immediately  attributed  this  to  three  things:  First, 
his  inherent  capacity  to  dominate  and  control  wealth;  second, 
the  especial  favor  of  God  to  him;  third,  to  his  superior  and 
moral  state  (due,  of  course,  to  his  possession  of  wealth).  These 
three  things,  uncorrected  as  yet  by  any  great  financial  pressure 
or  any  great  natural  or  world  catastrophe,  have  served  to  keep 
the  American  in  his  highly  romantic  state  of  self-deception. 
He  still  thinks  that  he  is  a  superior  spiritual  and  moral  being, 
infinitely  better  than  the  creatures  of  any  other  land,  and  noth- 
ing short  of  a  financial  cataclysm,  which  will  come  with  the, 
pressure  of  population  on  resources,  will  convince  him  that  he 
is  not.  But  that  he  will  yet  be  convinced  is  a  certainty.  You 
need  no  fear.  Leave  it  to  Nature. 

One  of  the  interesting  phases  of  this  puritanism  or  pharisee- 
ism  is  his  attitude  toward  women  and  their  morality  and  their 
purity.  If  ever  a  people  has  refined  eroticism  to  a  greater  de- 
gree than  the  American  I  am  not  aware  of  it.  Owing  to  a 
theory  of  the  doctrinaire  acceptance  of  the  Mary  legend  pos- 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA  26$ 

sibly  (Mary-olotry,  no  less),  the  good  American,  capable  of 
the  same  gross  financial  crimes  previously  indicated,  has  been 
able  to  look  upon  most  women,  but  more  particularly  those 
above  him  in  the  social  scale,  as  considerably  more  than  human 
— angelic,  no  less,  and  possessed  of  qualities  the  like  of  which 
are  not  to  be  found  in  any  breathing  being,  man,  woman,  child 
or  animal.  It  matters  not  that  his  cities  and  towns,  like  those 
of  any  other  nation,  are  rife  with  sex;  that  in  each  one  are 
specific  and  often  large  areas  devoted  to  Eros  or  Venus. 
While  maintaining  them  he  is  still  blind  to  their  exis- 
tence or  import.  He  or  his  boys  or  his  friends  go — but 

Only  a  mentally  one-sided  nature  or  race  such  as  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  could  have  built  upon  any  such  asinine  theory  as  this. 
One  would  suppose  that  as  they  did,  so  they  would  have  the 
courage  to  say,  or  at  least  cease  this  endless  pother  as  to 
superior  virtue.  But  no.  The  purity,  the  sanctity,  the  self- 
abnegation,  the  delicacy  of  women  in  America — how  these 
qualities  have  been  exaggerated  and  dinned  into  our  ears,  until 
at  last  the  average  scrubby  non-reasoning  male,  quite  capable 
of  visiting  the  gardens  of  Venus  or  taking  a  girl  off  the  street, 
is  no  more  able  to  clearly  visualize  the  creature  before  him  than 
he  is  the  central  wilds  of  Africa  which  he  has  never  seen.  A 
princess,  a  goddess,  a  divine  mother  or  creative  principle,  all 
the  virtues,  all  the  perfections,  no  vices,  no  weaknesses,  no 
errors — some  such  hodge-podge  as  this  has  come  to  be  the  aver- 
age Anglo-Saxon,  or  at  least  American,  conception  of  the  aver- 
age American  woman.  I  do  not  say  that  a  portion  of  this  illu- 
sion is  not  valuable,  but  as  it  stands  now  she  is  too  good  to 
be  true,  a  paragon,  a  myth!  Actually,  she  doesn't  exist  at  all 
as  he  has  been  taught  to  imagine  her.  She  is  nothing  more 
than  a  two-legged  biped  like  the  rest  of  us,  but  in  consequence 
of  this  delusion  sex  itself,  being  a  violation  of  this  paragon,  has 
become  a  crime.  We  enter  upon  the  earth,  it  is  true,  in  a  none 
too  artistic  manner  (conceived  in  iniquity  and  born  in  sin,  is 
the  Biblical  phrasing  of  it),  but  all  this  has  long  since  been 


266  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

glozed  over,  ignored,  and  to  obviate  its  brutality  as  much  as 
possible  the  male  has  been  called  upon  to  purify  himself  in 
thought  and  deed,  to  avoid  all  private  speculation  as  to  women 
and  his  relationship  to  them,  and,  much  more  than  that,  to 
avoid  all  public  discussion,  either  by  word  of  mouth  or  the 
printed  page. 

To  think  of  women  or  to  describe  them,  especially  in  our 
printed  or  publicly  uttered  word,  as  anything  less  than  the 
paragon  previously  commented  upon  has  become,  by  this 
process,  not  only  a  sin  but  a  shameful  infraction  of  the  moral 
code.  Women  are  now  so  good,  the  sex  relationship  so  vile  a 
thing  that  to  think  of  the  two  at  once  is  not  to  be  thought  of. 
They  are  supposed  to  have  no  connection.  We  must  move 
in  a  mirage  of  illusion;  we  must  trample  fact  underfoot  and 
give  fancy,  in  the  guise  of  our  so-called  better  natures,  free 
rein.  How  this  must  affect  or  stultify  the  artistic  and  creative 
faculties  of  the  race  itself  must  be  plain,  yet  that  is  exactly 
where  we  stand  to-day,  ethically  and  spiritually,  in  regard  to 
sex  and  women,  and  that  is  what  is  the  matter  with  American 
social  life,  letters  and  art.  Imagine  a  puritan  or  a  moralist 
attempting  anything  in  art,  which  is  nothing  if  not  a  true  re- 
flection, emotional  and  intellectual,  of  insight  into  life!  Im- 
agine! And  contrast  this  moral  or  art  narrowness  with  the 
American's  commercial  or  financial  or  agricultural  freedom 
and  sense,  and  note  the  difference.  In  regard  to  all  the  latter 
he  is  cool,  skeptical,  level-headed,  understanding,  natural,  con- 
sequently well-developed  in  those  fields;  in  regard  to  this  other 
he  is  disillusioned,  theoretic,  religious.  In  consequence  he  has 
no  power,  except  for  an  occasional  individual  who  may  rise  in 
spite  of  these  untoward  conditions  (to  be  frowned  upon),  to 
understand,  much  less  picture,  life  as  it  really  is.  Artistically, 
intellectually,  philosophically  we  are  weaklings;  financially  and 
in  all  ways  commercial  we  are  very  powerful.  So  one-sided  has 
been  our  development  that  in  this  latter  respect  we  are  almost 
giants.  Strange,  almost  fabulous  creatures  have  been  de- 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA  267 

veloped  here  by  this  process,  men  so  singularly  devoid  of  a 
rounded  human  nature  that  they  have  become  freaks  in  the 
matter  of  money-getting.  I  refer  to  Rockefeller,  Gould,  Sage, 
Vanderbilt  the  first,  H.  H.  Rogers,  Carnegie,  Frick. 

America  I  fear  can  be  most  aptly  pictured  as  the  land  of 
Bottom  the  Weaver;  and  by  Bottom  I  mean  the  tradesman  or 
manufacturer  who  by  reason  of  his  enthusiasm  for  the  sale  of 
paints  or  powder  or  threshing  machines  or  coal  has  accumu- 
lated wealth,  and  in  consequence  and  by  reason  of  the  hap- 
hazard privileges  of  democracy,  has  strayed  into  a  position  of 
counsellor,  or  even  dictator,  not  in  regard  to  the  things  about 
which  he  might  readily  be  supposed  to  know,  but  about  the 
many  things  about  which  he  would  be  much  more  likely  not 
to  know:  art,  science,  philosophy,  morals,  public  policy  in  gen- 
eral. You  recall  Bottom,  of  course,  in  "A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,"  unconscious  of  his  furry  ears  and  also  of  the  fact  that 
he  does  not  know  how  to  play  the  lion's  part;  that  it  is  more 
difficult  than  mere  roaring.  Here  he  is  now,  in  America,  en- 
throned as  a  lion,  and  in  his  way  he  is  an  epitome  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  temperament.  Bottom  is  so  wise  in  his  own  es- 
timation. He  never  once  suspects  his  furry  ears  or  that  he 
is  not  a  perfect  actor  in  the  role  of  the  lion — or,  if  you  will 
take  it  for  what  it  is  meant,  the  arts.  He  is  just  a  dull  weaver 
really,  made  by  this  dream  of  our  Constitution  ("an  exposition 
of  sleep"  come  upon  him)  into  a  roaring  lion — in  his  own  esti- 
mation. No  one  must  say  that  Bottom  is  not;  he  will  be 
driven  out  of  the  country,  deported  or  exiled.  No  one  must 
presume  to  practice  the  arts  save  as  Bottom  understands  them. 
If  you  do,  presto,  there  is  his  henchman  Comstock  and  all  Com- 
stockery  to  take  you  into  custody.  Men  who  have  come  here 
from  foreign  shores  (England  excepted)  have  been  amazed  at 
Bottom's  ears  and  his  presumption  in  passing  upon  what  is  a 
lion's  part  in  life.  Indeed  he  is  the  Anglo-Saxon  temperament 
personified.  He  is  convinced  that  liberty  was  not  made  for 
Oberon  or  Peaseblossom  or  Cobweb  or  Mustard,  but  for 


268  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

bishops  and  executives  and  wholesale  grocers  and  men  who 
have  become  vastly  rich  canning  tomatoes  or  selling  oil.  The 
great  desire  of  Bottom  is  for  all  of  us  to  have  furry  ears  and 
long,  and  to  believe  that  he  is  the  greatest  actor  in  the  world. 
He  is  bewildered  by  a  world  that  will  not  play  Pyramus  his 
way.  Quince,  Snug,  Flute,  Snout  and  Starveling  (all  those 
who  came  over  with  him  in  the  Mayflower)  agree  that  he  is  a 
great  actor,  but  there  are  others,  and  Bottom  is  convinced  that 
these  others  are  in  error,  trying  to  wreck  that  dream,  the  Ameri- 
can Constitution,  which  brought  this  "exposition  of  sleep"  upon 
him  and  made  him  into  a  lion,  "marvelous  furry  about  the  face" 
and  with  great  ears. 

Al^s,  alas!  for  art  in  America.  It  has  a  hard,  stubby  row  to 
hoe. 

But  my  quarrel  is  not  with  America  as  a  comfortable  com- 
mercial and  industrious  atmosphere  in  which  to  move  and  have 
one's  being,  but  largely  because  it  is  no  more  than  that,  be- 
cause it  tends  to  become  a  dull,  conventionalized,  routine,  ma- 
terial world,  duller  even  than  its  reputed  mother,  sacred  Eng- 
land. We  are  drifting,  unless  most  of  the  visible  signs  are  de- 
ceiving, into  the  clutches  of  a  commercial  oligarchy  whose 
mental  standards  outside  of  trade  are  so  puerile  as  to  be 
scarcely  worth  discussing.  Contemplate,  if  you  please,  what 
has  happened  to  one  of  the  shibboleths  or  bulwarks  of  our 
sacred  liberties  and  intellectual  freedom,  i.  e.,  the  newspaper, 
under  the  dominance  of  trade.  Look  at  it.  I  have  not  the  time 
here  to  set  forth  seriatim  all  the  charges  that  have  been  made, 
and  in  the  main  thoroughly  substantiated,  against  the  Ameri- 
can newspaper;  but  consider  for  yourself  the  newspapers  which 
you  know  and  read.  How  much,  I  ask  you,  if  you  are  in  trade, 
do  the  newspapers  you  read  know  about  trade?  How  far  could 
you  follow  their  trade  judgment  or  understanding?  And  if 
you  are  a  member  of  any  profession,  how  much  reported  pro- 
fessional knowledge  or  news,  as  presented  by  a  newspaper,  can 
you  rely  on?  If  a  newspaper  reported  a  professional  man's 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 


269 


judgment  or  dictum  in  regard  to  any  important  professional 
fact,  how  fully  would  you  accept  it  without  other  corroborative 
testimony? 

You  are  a  play-goer:  do  you  believe  the  newspaper  dramatic 
critics?  You  are  a  student  of  literature:  do  you  accept  the 
mouthings  of  their  literary  critics  or  even  look  to  them  for 
advice?  You  are  an  artist  or  a  lover  of  art:  do  you  follow 
the  newspapers  for  anything  more  than  the  barest  intelligence 
as  to  the  whereabouts  of  anything  artistic?  I  doubt  it.  And 
in  regard  to  politics,  finance,  social  movements  and  social 
affairs,  are  they  not  actually  the  darkest,  the  most  misrepre- 
sentative,  frequently  the  most  biased  and  malicious  guides 
in  the  world  of  the  printed  word?  Newspaper  criticism,  like 
newspaper  leadership,  has  long  since  come  to  be  looked  upon 
by  the  informed  and  intelligent  as  little  more  than  the  mouth- 
ings  or  bellowings  of  mercenaries  or  panderers  to  trade;  orr 
worse  still,  rank  incompetents.  The  newspaper  man,  per  se, 
either  does  not  know  or  cannot  help  himself.  The  newspaper 
publisher  is  very  glad  of  this  and  uses  his  half  intelligence  or 
inability  to  further  his  own  interests.  Politicians,  administra- 
tions, department  stores,  large  interests  and  personalities  of 
various  kinds  use  or  control  or  compel  newspapers  to  do  their 
bidding.  This  is  a  severe  indictment  to  make  against  the  press 
in  general,  but  is  it  not  literally  true? 

Take  again  the  large,  almost  dominant  religious  and  com- 
mercial organizations  of  America.  What  relationship,  if  any, 
do  they  bear  to  a  free  mental  development,  a  subtle  under- 
standing, art  or  life  in  its  poetic  or  tragic  moulds,  its  drift,  its 
character?  Would  you  personally  look  to  the  Methodist  or  the 
Presbyterian  or  the  Catholic  or  the  Baptist  church  to  further 
individualism,  or  freedom  of  thought,  or  directness  of  mental 
action,  or  art  in  any  form?  Do  not  they  really  ask  of  all  their 
adherents  that  they  lay  aside  this  freedom  in  favor  of  the  re- 
ported word  or  dictum  of  a  fabled,  a  non-historic,  an  imaginary 
ruler  of  the  universe?  Think  of  it!  And  they  are  among  the 


270  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

powerful,  constructive  and  controlling  elements  in  government 
— in  this  government,  to  be  accurate — dedicated  and  presu- 
mably devoted  to  individual  liberty,  not  only  of  so-called  con- 
science, but  of  constructive  thought  and  art. 

And  our  large  corporations,  with  their  dominant  and  control- 
ling captains  of  industry  so-called;  what  about  their  relation- 
ship to  individuality,  the  freedom  of  the  individual  to  think 
for  himself,  to  grow  mentally?  Take,  for  instance,  the  tobacco 
trust,  the  oil  trust,  the  milk  trust,  the  coal  trust — in  what  way 
do  you  suppose  they  help?  Are  they  actively  seeking  a  better 
code  of  ethics,  a  wider  historic  or  philosophic  perspective,  a 
more  delicate  art  perception  for  the  individual,  or  are  they 
definitely  and  permanently  concerned  with  the  customary 
bludgeoning  tactics  of  trade,  piling  up  fortunes  out  of  which 
they  are  to  be  partially  bled  later  by  pseudo  art  collectors  and 
swindling  dealers  in  antiques  and  so-called  historic  art  and 
literature?  Of  current  life  and  its  accomplishments,  what  do 
they  actually  know?  Yet  this  is  a  democracy.  Here,  as  in 
no  other  realm  of  the  world,  the  individual  is  supposed  to  be 
permitted,  even  compelled,  to  seek  his  own  material  and  mental 
salvation  as  best  he  may.  Yet  one  trouble  with  a  democracy, 
in  so  far  as  art  and  individual  intelligence  is  concerned,  as  op- 
posed to  an  autocracy  with  a  line  of  titled  idlers,  is  that  the 
latter  permits  at  least  the  gift  of  leisure  and  art  indulgence  to 
a  few  and  there  usually  is  a  central  force  or  group  to  fos- 
ter art,  to  secure  letters  and  art  in  their  inalienable  rights, 
to  make  of  superior  thought  a  noble  and  a  sacred  thing.  I  am 
not  saying  that  democracy  will  not  yet  produce  such  a  central 
force  or  group.  I  believe  it  may  or  can.  .It  is  entirely  possible 
that  when  the  time  arrives  it  may  prove  to  be  better  than  any 
form  of  hereditary  autocracy.  But  I  am  talking  about  the  men- 
tal, the  social,  the  artistic  condition  of  America  as  it  is  to-day. 

To  me  it  is  a  thing  for  laughter,  if  not  for  tears;  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  million  Americans,  rich  (a  fair  percentage 
of  them,  anyhow)  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice,  and  scarcely 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA  271 

a  sculptor,  a  poet,  a  singer,  a  novelist,  an  actor,  a  musician, 
worthy  the  name.  One  hundred  and  forty  years  (almost  two 
hundred,  counting  the  Colonial  days)  of  the  most  prosperous 
social  conditions,  a  rich  soil,  incalculable  deposits  of  gold, 
silver  and  precious  and  useful  metals  and  fuels  of  all  kinds,  a 
land  amazing  in  its  mountains,  its  streams,  its  valley  pros- 
pects, its  wealth-yielding  powers,  and  now  its  tremendous  cities 
and  far-flung  facilities  for  travel  and  trade — and  yet  contem- 
plate it.  Artists,  poets,  thinkers,  where  are  they?  Has  it  pro- 
duced a  single  philosopher  of  the  first  rank — a  Spencer,  a 
Nietzsche,  a  Schopenhauer,  a  Kant?  Do  I  hear  some  one  offer- 
ing Emerson  as  an  equivalent?  Or  James?  Has  it  produced  a 
historian  of  the  force  of  either  Macaulay  or  Grote  or  Gibbon? 
A  novelist  of  the  rank  of  Turgenev,  de  Maupassant  or  Flau- 
bert? A  scientist  of  the  standing  of  Crookes  or  Roentgen  or 
Pasteur?  A  critic  of  the  insight  and  force  of  Taine,  Sainte- 
Beuve  or  the  de  Goncourts?  A  dramatist  the  equivalent  of 
Ibsen,  Chekhov,  Shaw,  Hauptmann,  Brieux?  An  actor,  since 
Booth,  of  the  force  of  Coquelin,  Sonnenthal,  Forbes-Robertson 
or  Sarah  Bernhardt?  Since  Whitman,  one  poet:  Edgar  Lee 
Masters.  In  painting  a  Whistler,  an  Inness,  a  Sargent.  Who 
else?  (And  two  of  these  shook  the  dust  of  our  shores  forever.) 
Inventors,  yes;  by  the  hundreds,  one  might  almost  say  thou- 
sands; some  of  them  amazing  enough,  in  all  conscience,  world 
figures,  and  enduring  for  all  time.  But  of  what  relationship  to 
art,  the  supreme  freedom  of  the  mind? 

The  most  significant,  and  to  me  discouraging,  manifestation 
in  connection  with  the  United  States  to-day  is  the  tendency  to 
even  narrower  and  more  puritanic  standards  than  have  ob- 
tained in  the  past.  I  am  constantly  astonished  by  the  thou- 
sands of  men,  exceedingly  capable  in  some  mechanical  or 
narrow  technical  sense,  whose  world  or  philosophic  vision  is 
that  of  a  child.  As  a  nation  we  accept  and  believe  naively  in 
such  impossible  things.  I  am  not  thinking  alone  of  the  primary 
tenets  of  all  religions,  which  are  manifestly  based  on  nothing 


272  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

at  all  and  which  millions  of  Americans,  along  with  the  humbler 
classes  of  other  countries,  accept,  but  rather  of  those  sterner 
truths  which  life  itself  teaches:  the  unreliability  of  human 
nature;  the  crass  chance  which  strikes  down  and  destroys  our 
finest  dreams;  the  fact  that  man  in  all  his  relations  is  neither 
good  nor  evil,  but  both.  The  American,  by  some  hocus  pocus 
of  atavism,  has  seemingly  borrowed  or  retained  from  English 
lower  middle-class  puritans  all  their  folderol  notions  about 
making  human  nature  perfect  by  fiat  or  edict — the  written 
word,  as  it  were,  which  goes  with  all  religions.  So,  although 
by  reason  of  the  coarsest  and  most  brutal  methods  we  as  a 
nation  have  built  up  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  domineer- 
ing oligarchies  in  the  world,  we  are  still  not  aware  of  the  fact. 

All  men,  in  the  mind  of  the  unthinking  American,  are  still 
free  and  equal.  They  have  in  themselves  certain  inalienable 
rights;  what  they  are  when  you  come  to  test  them  no  human 
being  can  discover.  Life  here,  as  elsewhere,  comes  down  to  the 
brutal  methods  of  Nature  itself.  The  rich  strike  the  poor  at 
every  turn;  the  poor  defend  themselves  and  further  their  lives 
by  all  the  tricks  which  stark  necessity  can  conceive.  No  in- 
alienable right  keeps  the  average  cost  of  living  from  rising 
steadily,  while  most  of  the  salaries  of  our  idealistic  Americans 
are  stationary.  No  inalienable  right  has  ever  yet  prevented  the 
strong  from  tricking  or  browbeating  the  weak.  And  although 
by  degrees  the  average  American  is  feeling  more  and  more 
keenly  the  sharpening  struggle  for  existence,  yet  his  faith  in  his 
impossible  ideals  is  as  fresh  as  ever.  God  will  save  the  good 
American  and  seat  him  at  His  right  hand  on  the  Golden 
Throne. 

With  one  hand  the  naive  American  takes  and  executes  with 
all  the  brutal  insistence  of  Nature  itself;  with  the  other  he 
writes  glowing  platitudes  concerning  brotherly  love,  virtue, 
purity,  truth,  etc.,  etc.  A  part  of  this  right  or  left  hand  ten- 
dency, as  the  case  may  be,  is  seen  in  the  constant  desire  of  the 
American  to  reform  something.  No  country  in  the  world,  not 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA  273 

even  England,  the  mother  of  folderol  reforms,  is  so  prolific 
in  these  frail  ventures  as  this  great  country  of  ours.  In  turn 
we  have  had  campaigns  for  the  reform  of  the  atheist,  the  drunk- 
ard, the  lecher,  the  fallen  woman,  the  buccaneer  financier,  the 
drug  fiend,  the  dancer,  the  theatergoer,  the  reader  of  novels,  the 
wearer  of  low-neck  dresses  and  surplus  jewelry — in  fact  every 
taste  and  frivolity,  wherever  sporadically  it  has  chanced  to 
manifest  itself  with  any  interesting  human  force.  Your  re- 
former's idea  is  that  any  human  being,  to  be  a  successful  one, 
must  be  a  pale  spindling  sprout,  incapable  of  any  vice  or  crime. 
And  all  the  while  the  threshing  sea  of  life  is  sounding  in  his 
ears!  The  thief,  the  lecher,  the  drunkard,  the  fallen  woman, 
the  greedy,  the  inordinately  vain,  as  in  all  ages  past,  pass  by 
his  door  and  are  not  the  whit  less  numerous  for  the  unending 
campaigns  which  have  been  launched  to  save  them.  In  other 
words,  human  nature  is  human  nature,  but  your  American 
cannot  be  made  to  believe  it. 

Personally  my  quarrel  is  with  America's  quarrel  with  ori- 
ginal thought.  It  is  so  painful  to  me  to  see  one  after  another 
of  our  alleged  reformers  tilting  Don  Quixote-like  at  the  giant 
windmills  of  fact.  We  are  to  have  no  pictures  which  the  puri- 
tan and  the  narrow,  animated  by  an  obsolete  dogma,  cannot 
approve  of.  We  are  to  have  no  theaters,  no  motion  pictures, 
no  books,  no  public  exhibitions  of  any  kind,  no  speech  even, 
which  will  in  any  way  contravene  his  limited  view  of  life. 
Finally  we  even  contrived  a  President  who  was  to  have  no  more 
war!  A  few  years  ago  it  was  the  humble  dealer  in  liquor  whose 
life  was  anathematized  and  whose  property  was  descended  upon 
with  torch,  axe  and  bomb.  A  little  later,  our  cities  growing 
and  the  sections  devoted  to  the  worship  of  Venus  becoming 
more  manifest,  the  Vice  Crusader  was  bred,  and  we  now  have 
the  spectacle  of  whole  areas  of  fallen  women  scattered  to  the 
four  winds  and  allowed  to  practice  separately  what  they  cannot 
do  collectively.  Also  came  Mr.  Comstock,  vindictive,  persis- 
tent, and  with  a  nose  and  taste  for  the  profane  and  erotic  such 


274  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

as  elsewhere  has  not  been  equaled  since.  Pictures,  books,  the 
theater,  the  dance,  the  studio — all  came  under  his  watchful 
eye.  During  the  twenty  or  thirty  years  in  which  he  acted  as  a 
United  States  Postoffice  Inspector  he  was,  because  of  his  dull 
charging  against  things  which  he  did  not  understand,  never 
out  of  the  white  light  of  publicity  which  he  so  greatly  craved. 
One  month  it  would  be  a  novel  by  d'Annunzio;  another,  a  set 
of  works  by  Balzac  or  de  Maupassant,  found  in  the  shade  of 
some  grovelly  bookseller's  shop;  the  humble  photographer  at- 
tempting a  nude;  the  painter  who  allowed  his  reverence  for 
Raphael  to  carry  him  too  far;  the  poet  who  attempted  a  re- 
crudescence of  Don  Juan  in  modern  iambics,  was  immediately 
seized  upon  and  hauled  before  an  equally  dull  magistrate,  there 
to  be  charged  with  his  offense  and  to  be  fined  accordingly.  All 
this  is  being  continued  with  emphasis. 

Then  came  the  day  of  the  armed  White  Slave  Chasers,  and 
now  no  American  city  and  no  backwoods  Four  Corners,  how- 
ever humble,  is  complete  without  a  vice  commission  of  some 
kind,  or  at  least  a  local  agent  or  representative  charged  with  the 
duty  of  keeping  the  art,  the  literature,  the  press  and  the  private 
lives  of  all  those  at  hand  up  to  that  standard  of  perfection 
which  only  the  dull  can  set  for  themselves.  When  the  White 
Slave  question  was  at  its  whitest  heat  the  problem  of  giving 
expression  to  its  fundamental  aspects  was  divided  between 
raiding  plays  which  attempted  to  show  the  character  of  the 
crime  in  too  graphic  a  manner,  and  licensing  those  which  ap- 
pealed to  the  intelligence  of  those  who  were  foremost  in  the 
crusade.  Thus  we  had  the  spectacle  of  an  uncensored,  but 
nevertheless  approved,  ten-reel  film  showing  more  details  of 
the  crime  and  better  methods  of  securing  white  slaves  than  any 
other  production  of  the  day,  running  undisturbed  to  packed 
houses  all  over  the  country;  while  two  somewhat  more  dramatic 
but  far  less  effective  distributors  of  information  via  plays  were 
successfully  harried  from  city  to  city  and  finally  withdrawn. 

Shakespeare  has  been  ordered  from  the  schools  in  some  of 


LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA  275 

the  States.  A  production  of  "Antony  and  Cleopatra"  has  been 
raided  in  Chicago.  Japanese  prints  of  a  high  art  value,  in- 
tended for  the  seclusion  of  a  private  collection,  have  been 
seized  and  the  most  valuable  of  them  destroyed.  By  turns,  an 
artistic  fountain  to  Heine  in  New  York,  loan  exhibits  of  paint- 
ings in  Denver,  Kansas  City  and  elsewhere,  scores  of  books  by 
Stevenson,  James  Lane  Allen,  Frances  H.  Burnett,  have  been 
attacked,  not  only,  as  in  the  case  of  the  latter,  with  the  airy 
weapons  of  the  law,  but  in  the  case  of  the  former  with  actual 
axes.  A  male  dancer  of  repute  and  some  artistic  ability  has 
been  raided  publicly  by  the  Vice  Crusaders  for  his  shameless 
exposure  of  his  person!  No  play,  no  picture,  no  book,  no 
public  or  private  jubilation  of  any  kind  is  complete  any  more 
without  its  vice  attack. 

To  me  this  sort  of  thing  is  dull  and  bespeaks  the  low  state 
to  which  our  mental  activities  have  fallen.  When  it  comes  to 
the  matter  of  serious  letters  it  is  the  worst.  In  New  York  a 
literary  region  of  terror  has  been  and  is  now  being  attempted. 
The  publisher  of  Freud's  "Leonardo"  is  warned  before  he 
brings  it  out  that  he  will  be  prosecuted — a  work  that  probably 
has  no  more  defect  than  that  of  being  intelligent  and  true.  Simi- 
larly, Mr.  Przybyszewski's  "Homo  Sapiens,"  a  by  no  means 
pornographic  work,  was  at  once  seized  on  its  appearance  and  the 
publishers  frightened  into  withdrawing  it.  This  was  true  of 
"Hagar  Revelly,"  "Tess  of  the  d'Urbevilles,"  "Sapho,"  "Jude 
the  Obscure,"  "Rose  of  Dutchers  Cooley,"  "A  Lady  of 
Quality,"  "A  Summer  in  Arcady,"  and  scores  of  others. 
Imagine  banning  a  book  like  "A  Summer  in  Arcady"  from  the 
public  libraries!  Even  "The  Sexual  Question"  by  the  eminent 
August  Forel  has  been  banned  and  of  course  all  of  Kraft-Ebling 
(Freud  and  Ellis  are  sold  only  on  the  written  order  of  a  doctor 
• — a  mental  prescription  as  it  were) .  Think  of  it — the  work  of 
a  scientist  of  Freud's  attainments! 

This  sort  of  interference  with  serious  letters  and  science  is 
to  me  the  worst  and  most  corrupting  form  of  espionage  which 


276  LIFE,  ART  AND  AMERICA 

is  conceivable  to  the  human  mind.  It  plumbs  the  depths  of 
ignorance  and  intolerance;  if  not  checked  it  can  and  will  dam 
initiative  and  inspiration  at  the  source.  Life,  if  it  is  any- 
thing at  all,  is  a  thing  to  be  observed,  studied,  interpreted. 
We  cannot  know  too  much  about  it  because  as  yet  we  know 
nothing.  It  is  our  one  great  realm  of  discovery.  The  artist,  if 
left  to  himself,  may  be  safely  trusted  to  observe,  synchronize 
and  articulate  human  knowledge  in  the  most  comprehensive 
form.  Human  nature  will  seek  and  have  what  it  needs,  the  vice 
crusaders  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  There  is  no  com- 
pulsion on  any  one  to  read;  one  must  pay  to  do  so.  What  is 
more,  one  must  have  taste  inherently  to  select,  a  brain  and  a 
heart  to  understand.  With  all  these  safeguards  and  a  double 
score  of  capable  critics  in  every  land  to  praise  or  blame,  what 
need  really  is  there  for  a  censor,  or  a  dozen  of  them,  each  far 
less  fitted  than  any  of  the  working  critics  to  indulge  his  per- 
sonal predilection  and  opposition,  and  to  appeal  to  the  courts 
if  he  is  disagreed  with? 

Personally  I  rise  to  protest.  I  look  on  this  interference 
with  serious  art  and  thought  and  serious  minds  as  an  outrage. 
I  fear  for  the  ultimate  intelligence  of  America,  which  in  all 
conscience,  judged  by  world  standards,  is  low  enough.  Now 
comes  a  band  of  wasp-like  censors  to  put  the  finishing  touches 
on  a  literature  and  an  art  that  has  struggled  all  too  feebly  as 
it  is.  Poe,  Hawthorne,  Whitman  and  Thoreau,  each  in  turn 
was  the  butt  and  jibe  of  unintelligent  Americans,  until  by  now 
we  are  well  nigh  the  laughing-stock  of  the  world.  Where  is  it 
to  end?  When  will  we  lay  aside  our  swaddling-clothes,  en- 
forced on  us  by  ignorant,  impossible  puritans  and  their  unedu- 
cated followers,  and  stand  up  free- thinking  men  and  women? 
Life  is  to  be  learned  as  much  from  books  and  art  as  from  life 
itself — almost  more  so,  in  my  judgment.  Art  is  the  stored 
honey  of  the  human  soul,  gathered  on  wings  of  misery  and 
travail.  Shall  the  dull  and  the  self-seeking  and  the  self-adver- 
tising close  this  store  on  the  groping  human  mind? 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

EDITORIAL  NOTE:  The  following  manuscript,  recovered  from  one 
of  the  twenty-seven  tombs  of  Federated  Chairmen  of  the  Post  Fed- 
erated Period  of  World  Republics,  A.D.  2760-3923,  recently  discov- 
ered in  the  debris  centers  of  Exomia,  Domas  and  Polos  (Central 
Asia),  plainly  refers  to  some  annual  festival  or  period  of  congratu- 
lation which,  according  to  the  historian,  Ruffstuff,  who  seems  to 
have  flourished  toward  the  close  of  that  period  when  the  great 
Asiatic  and  American  world  floods  (the  shifting  of  the  boundaries 
of  the  Pacific)  ended  the  old  order,  was  apparently  held,  first,  at 
some  point  in  Central  South  Africa;  later  in  Middle  Western  North 
America,  as  the  then  continents  were  called.  The  author  or  drama- 
tist, Theobromo,  plainly  of  some  period  later  than  that  of  the  Post 
Federated,  when  literature  of  all  sorts,  owing  to  the  religious  view- 
point of  the  Federation,  was  non-existent,  was  plainly  familiar  with 
records  of  this  great  court  or  festival,  now  non-existent.  (See 
mention  in  closing  paragraph  of  Moline-Emporia-Sedalia  sittings, 
points  or  places  which  have  not  as  yet  been  identified.)  The  trans- 
lator, Can.  Theodore  Dreiser,  of  Cambo,  North  Dromio,  begs  to 
explain  that  owing  to  the  peculiar  difficulties  of  the  language  then 
used  the  exact  rendition  of  certain  phrases  and  passages  is  not 
guaranteed. 

CHARACTERS 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS  -.Grand  Referendunce  Chairman  of  the  Fed- 
erated Musnud  of  the  World. 

SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH :  Master  of  Ceremonies  to  the  Court 
of  Progress. 

'Savants    

Moonshees    , 

-..  Roctor-Proctors    , 

-!  Pundits   j-One  hundred 

Theorists    

Seers , 

277 


<  i 


278 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 


Of 


fZadkiels  . 
Oracles  . 
Solons  . . . 
Nestors  .. 
Gamaliels 
Daniels  . 


.One  hundred 


Of 


-Dizzards 50 

Zanys 100 

Fuddys  •  100 

Hoddy-Doddys 100 

Loobies 1000 

Gaberlunzies 1000 

Nizys 5000 


Of  Descendant 
Sons  and  Daugh% 
ters  of  Ancient 
and  Honorable 


Anti-Vivisectionists  

Anti-Vac cinationists 

Anti-Contraceptionists , 

Anti-Saloon  Leaguers   

Anti-Vice  Crusaders  

Anti-Lewd  Book  Examiners 

Eugenic  Sires   

Free  and  Accepted  Boy  Scouts 

Professors  of  Christian  Economy 

Feminists  

Moral  Prophylaxers   

Non-Smokers'  Social  Unionists 

Seventh  Day  Adventists  

Sabbath  Day  Exclusivists  

Holy  Rollers  

Evangelists   

King's  Daughters 

Women  Magazine  Editors  

Library  Protection  Association  Guards 

Watch  and  Ward  Society  Guards 

Prohibitionists  

Federated  Philosophers  

Union  Astronomers 

Socialists  


50,000 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 


279 


Of  plaster  or 
Ossified  Speci- 
mens of  Ancient 
and  Degraded 


'Gamblers  , 

Saloon-keepers , 

Bartenders  

Financiers  , 

Thieves 

Vivisectionists   , 

Vaccinationists 

Philosophers 

Politicians  

Astronomers 

Magdalens , 

'Madams 

Novelists  

Playwrights 

Scenario  Writers  • 

Musicians    

Painters  

Poets    

Cigarette  Fiends 

Dope  Fiends 

Sabbath  Day  Breakers 

Pragmatists    

Predatory  Rich 

Anarchists 

White  Slavers 

Nietzscheans 

Scientists  

Chemists    

Physicists 

Stoics   

Liars  

Dogs  

Scoundrels  ., 


One  Each 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

SCENE:  A  great  plain,  filled  with  a  vast  multitude  of  people, 
Tents,  pagodas,  pavilions,  booths,  kiosks,  scattered  over  a  wide 
area  and  alive  with  a  swarming  mass.  Overhead  innumerable 
Hags,  banners,  shields,  emblems  and  insignia  of  all  kinds,  as 
well  as  a  welter  of  decoration  and  bunting,  all  symbolic  of 


280  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

peace,  prosperity  and  progress.  Innumerable  alleyways'  and 
passages  suggest  a  maze.  In  the  center,  behind  a  great  open- 
square  or  drill-ground,  an  enormous  pink-and-green  pavilion  of 
silk,  Huttering  innumerable  pinions  and  streamers  of  the  most 
variegated  hues.  In  the  extreme  west  of  this  (center)  and  fac- 
ing east  (to  suggest  open-mindcdness  and  a  spirit  of  receptivity 
and  progress)  a  giant  Musnud  or  throne  of  dried  mush,  straw 
and  the  polished  grains  of  the  oyster  plant,  each  with  its  spirit- 
ual, ethical  and  social  significance.  This  same  is  richly  carved 
and  tinted  to  represent  the  dawn,  while  at  the  top,  by  a  process 
of  higher  coloring,  the  fioridity,  variety  and  fecundity  of  tropic 
life,  signifying  fullness  of  development,  is  suggested.  Over  this 
a  canopy  of  dried  morning-glory  vines  stained  to  represent  the 
pink  glow  of  dawn  and  strung  with  innumerable  papier-mache 
flozvers  representative  of  the  bursting  blooms  of  perfection. 
Beneath,  a  large  assortment  of  pillows,  rugs,  bed-ticks,  mats, 
cushions,  hassocks  and  the  like,  tinted  to  suggest  the  variety, 
fecundity,  beneficence  and  generosity  of  Nature.  On  these  rest 
the  one  hundred  Moonshees,  Savants,  Pundits,  Roctor-Proctors, 
Theorists,  Seers,  Zadkiels,  Oracles,  Solons,  Nestors  and  pro- 
found Daniels  and  Gamaliels,  members  of  the  High  Court  of 
Progress  of  the  Federated  Republics  of  the  World  for  the  years 
3913-3923,  and  representing  in  themselves  the  world's  farthest 
intellectual  reaches  as  well  as  its  peace,  progress,  perfection  and 
plenty. 

On  their  heads  tall  cornucopias  of  green-and-yellow  tinfoil, 
'fluttering  with  ribbons.  On  their  bodies  flowing  silk  robes  of 
green  decorated  with  red,  yellow  and  blue  astrologic  designs, 
each  of  special  ethical,  social  and  spiritual  significance.  In  the 
center  of  this  company,  his  body  clad  in  yellow,  green  and  blue 
cheesecloth,  his  head  surmounted  by  a  tall  blue  cornucopia  (sig- 
nifying peace  and  plenty) ,  and  resting  on  an  immense  stack  of 
eiderdown  pillows,  NOXUS  PODUNKUS,  Grand  Referendunce 
Chairman  of  the  Federated  Republics  of  the  World  and  Presi- 
dent pro  tern  of  the  Court  of  Progress  of  the  same.  He  is  very 
fat  and  restful.  Behind  and  among  them,  fifty  Dizzards  in  sky- 
blue  Heshings,  jackets  of  yellow,  and  pink  coat-scuttle  helmets, 
who  keep  watch  and  ward  by  whistling  between  their  teeth  and 
laying  about  them  with  feather-stuffed  clubs  whenever  the  at- 
tention of  the  Moonshees  is  desired.  Among  the  audience,  one 
hundred  thousand  already  admitted  and  in  their  seats,  five  thou- 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  281 

sand  Nizys  in  pink  fleshings  and  striped  blue-and-grecn  shawls, 
each  carrying  a  tin  wash-boiler  full  of  orange  and  lemon  souffle 
and  doling  out  the  same  in  ice-cream  cones  to  all  who  signal. 
The  latter  are  hung  around  their  waists  in  long  strings. 

Before  the  Musnud  one  hundred  Hoddy-Doddys,  Ticklers 
Extraordinary  to  the  Savants,  Zadkiels,  etc.  These  are  arrayed 
in  green  fleshings  and  yellow  silk  overcoats,  and  carry  yellow 
feather-dusters  attached  to  long  blue  bamboo  stalks.  They  assist 
the  Diszards  in  keeping  the  Moonshees  awake.  About  the 
Hoddy-Doddys,  ranged  in  a  semi-circle,  one  hundred  Zanys, 
Official  Wing-Bag  Rattlers  to  the  Musnud.  These  same  wear 
orange-and-green  sweaters  and  running  pants  of  black  and 
orange,  plus  long-visorcd  caps  of  green,  and  carry  pear-shaped 
wind-bags  containing  dried  watermelon  seeds,  the  ethical  symbol 
of  receptivity,  which  they  rattle  whenever  the  attention  of  the 
audience  is  desired.  Between  the  Hoddy-Doddys  and  the 
Musnud,  and  at  the  immediate  base  of  the  same,  one  hundred 
Fuddys,  Wireless  Telegraph  Operators  Extraordinary  to  the 
Court,  in  green  silk  uniforms  and  plug  hats,  who  are  busy 
sending  out  preliminary  notices  to  the  world  of  the  assembling 
of  the  Court  of  Progress.  Beyond  the  Zanys  in  the  aisles  and 
semi-circular  passages  between  the  seats,  one  thousand  Loobies 
and  one  thousand  Gaberlunzies,  Official  First  and  Second  Read- 
ers to  the  Court,  the  First  arrayed  in  blue-and-white,  the  Second 
in  green-and-white  polka-dot  gowns  and  mortar-boards,  and 
?ach  carrying  about  his  waist  a  chain  to  which  is  attached  all 
the  then  permitted  classics  of  the  pre-Federated  Period 
(A.  D.  1897- -1927)— Hamilton  Wright  Mabie,  Orrison  Swett  Mar- 
den,  Harold  Bell  Wright,  Gene  Stratton  Porter,  Ralph  Waldo 
Trine  and  others — from  which  at  all  moments  of  undue  excite- 
ment it  is  their  duty  to  read  soothing  passages  in  unison. 

Oufs:-:te  the  principal  entrance  to  the  pavilion,  on  the  Grand 
Concc'iirs?,  separate  companies  or  regiments  of  Descendant  Sons 
and  Daughters  of  Ancient  and  Honorable  Anti-Viviseciionists, 
Anti-Vac  cinationists,  Anti-Contraceptionists,  Anti-Vice  Cru- 
saders, Eugenic  Sires,  Feminists,  Non-Smokers'  Social  Unionists, 
•.Anti-Saloon  Leaguers,  Free  and  Accepted  Boy  Scouts,  Profes- 
sors of  Christian  Economy,  Seventh  Day  Advcntists,  Sabbath 
Day  Exclusivists,  Holy  Rotters,  King's  Daughters,  Waich  and 
Ward  Guards,  Library  Protection  Association  Guards,  Union 
Astronomers,  Federated  College  Philosophers,  Evangelists,  etc., 


282  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

each  practicing  their  separate  evolutions  and  class  yells.  A 
giant  procession,  fifty  thousand  ttt  number,  soon  to  start  and  file 
before  the  assembled  Pundits  and  Zadkiels  of  the  Court  sitting 
on  the  Musnud  within,  is  intended  to  demonstrate  to  it  and 
to  the  Universe  at  large,  via  the  assembled  audience,  the  happy 
presence  and  persistence  and  strength  of  the  forces  of  light  and 
order  and  truth,  as  opposed  to  the  quondam  and  now  all  but 
vanished  remnants  of  darkness  prevailing  in  the  world  before 
the  Federation  of  the  Commission-Governed  Republics  of  the 
World.  As  the  principal  function  of  the  Court  is  to  catechise  its 
adherents  and  delegates  as  to  the  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in 
them,  and  to  learn  as  to  the  present  progress  of  truth,  mercy, 
justice,  etc.  via  a  series  of  shrewd  and  now  sacred  questions 
(the  Post  Federated  Tablets  of  the  Law)  especially  calculated 
to  bring  forth  the  facts  and  shame  the  forces  of  darkness  into 
silence,  these  same  stand  ready  to  answer  all  such  questions  as 
to  the  certainty  of  the  final  perfection  of  life  and  so  to  receive 
the  approval  of  the  Musnud  and  the  assembled  populace. 

Some  companies  of  these  same  are  at  present  busy  executing 
their  preliminary  maneuvers,  walking  on  their  hands,  turning 
hand-springs  and  cart-wheels,  whirling  as  dervishes  and  whis- 
tling and  cat-calling.  Others  ask  and  answer  each  other  the 
sacred  questions  of  the  Tablets;  still  others  leap,  run  around  in 
a  ring,  roll  in  the  dust  and  kick.  Still  others  meditate  head  in 
hand  or  stare  in  fixed  absorption  at  Philosophers'  targets  fixed 
on  posts  at  different  points  in  the  grounds.  A  general  air  of 
hope,  sequacity,  peace,  content,  well-being,  ease,  and  other  forms 
of  human  satisfaction,  pervades  each  and  every  section  of  the 
field. 

Hauled  about  by  varying  groups  of  Descendant  Sons  and 
Daughters  of  Free  and  Accepted  Boy  Scouts,  Anti-Vivisec- 
tionists,  Anti-Vaccinationists,  etc.,  all  in  attractive  and  unfor- 
getable  raiment  of  cerise,  purple,  yellow  and  nile  green,  are  the 
only  remaining  speciments  or  images  of  now  all  but  extinct 
Gamblers,  Saloon-Keepers,  Financiers,  Thieves,  Vivisectionists, 
Vaccinationists,  Philosophers,  Politicians,  Magdalens  and  Pred- 
atory Rich  still  in  captivity  or  existence.  It  should  be  stated  in 
passing  that  all  Liars,  Thieves,  Scoundrels,  Lechers,  Anarchists 
and  the  like  were  finally  exterminated  during  the  all-memorable 
Federated  Presidency  of  Bonehead  X,  A.  D.  3409-3427,  just  five 
hundred  years  before.  Saloons  and  all  forms  of  illegal  as  well 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  283 

as  commercialized  vice  departed  this  earth  some  seven  hundred- 
years  before.  The  ladies  of  the  Inner  High  Council  of 
Descendant  Sons  and  Daughters  of  Ancient  Thirty-second  De- 
gree Anti-Vivisectionists  have  here  (muzzled  and  chained)  the 
only  extant  examples  of  a  Vivisectionist  surgeon  of  the  former 
cult  of  inhuman  experimentalists,  captured  in  Greenland.  The 
Federated  Union  of  Descendant  Sons  and  Daughters  of  An- 
cient and  Honorable  Vice-Crusaders  of  the  World  present  in  a 
drop-forged  steel  cage,  painted  yellow,  blue  and  green,  the  only 
living  specimen  of  a  simon-pure  Madam,  recently  captured  in 
the  outlying  regions  of  Borneo.  In  other  portions  of  the  field, 
caged  and  dressed  to  represent  now  extinct  types  of  Material- 
ists, Scientists,  Philosophers,  Chemists,  Nietzscheans,  Prag<- 
matists,  Stoics  and  so  forth,  are  one  hundred  volunteers  of  the 
East  South  African  School  of  Christian  Histrionic  Culture, 
freely  giving  their  services  for  this  great  occasion. 

SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH 

(Grand  Secretary-Treasurer  of  the  Indo-Ajrican  group  of 
Commission-Governed  Republics,  now  in  federation  with  the 
rest  of  the  world,  and  Master  of  Ceremonies  to  the  Court  of 
Progress.  He  is  a  tall  man,  in  a  suit  of  red-and-green  pa- 
jamas, slightly  rubberized  and  inflated.  His  ears  are  pierced 
and  hung  with  blue  earrings  and  his  cheeks  are  adorned  with 
yellow  lambrequins  three  feet  long.  Temporarily  he  is  enter- 
taming  himself  just  outside  the  stage  entrance  to  the  main  tent 
by  doing  back  somersaults,  but  at  the  sight  of  five  thousand 
Descendant  Sons  and  Daughters  of  Free  and  Accepted  Boy 
Scouts,  Watch  and  Ward,  and  Library  Protection  Guards  in 
marching  order  approaching  the  main  or  stage  entrance,  he 
executes  nine  hand-springs,  three  bounds  and  one  back  somer- 
sault, landing  in  front  of  the  Musnud.  At  sight  of  him  the  as- 
sembled multitude  stirs  and  quivers  and  he-haws  with  delight. 
The  associated  Moonshees,  Pundits,  Roctor-Proctors  and 
others  stir  slightly  but  continue  to  snore.  SHISHMASH 
HASH  HASH,  executing  a  jig-step  and  tying  his  whiskers  in 
a  bow-knot.)  Your  Referendunces!  (At  this  the  fifty  Diz- 
zards  directly  in  attendance  on  the  assembled  Moonshees  o) 


284  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

the  Musnud,  each  over  six  feet  tall  and  weighing  exactly  one 
hundred  and  twenty-seven  pounds,  stir  the  latter  to  wakeful- 
ness  by  whistling  between  their  fingers  and  beating  them  with 
their  feather-stuffed  clubs.) 

THE  FIFTY  DIZZARDS 

Pfs-s-t! Pfs-s-t! Pfs-s-t!      (They   lay    about    them 

mightily  with  their  clubs.) 

THE  FIVE  THOUSAND  NIZYS 

(Bearers  of  orange  and  lemon  souffle  to  the  Court.  Be- 
coming greatly  excited  at  sight  of  the  platform  Dizzards  be- 
laboring the  Moonshees  and  beginning  to  jump  up  and  down, 
at  the  same  time  ladling  out  cones  of  green  and  pink  souffle.) 
Refresh  yourselves,  good  people!  Refresh  yourselves!  Ssh! — 
Sssssh !  — Ssssssssh ! 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  HODDY-DODDYS 

(Shaking  their  long-handled  feather-dusters  and  whirling 
about  in  a  ring.)  Awake,  your  Referendunces!  Awake! 
Awake!  (They  tickle  the  noses,  ears,  chins  and  necks  of  the 
Moonshees,  Zadkiels,  etc.,  who  stir  feebly  but  continue  to 
snore.) 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  ZANYS 

(Rattling  their  wind-bags  and  jigging  in  unison.)  Attention! 
Attention,  good  audience!  Attention!  Their  Grand  Referen- 
dunces of  the  Federated  Musnud  of  the  World  are  about  to  be 
awakened!  Attention!  Attention!  (They  rattle  their  wind- 
bags vigorously  and  roll  their  eyes  from  left  to  right  and  back 
nine  times.) 
THE  TWO  THOUSAND  LOOBIES  AND  GABERLUNZIES 

(Roaming  nervously  to  and  fro,  reading.)    "At  this  moment, 
the  sun  sinking  low  in  the  West,  the  faint  West  wind  stirring 
in  the  leaves,   the  pellucid  rill   tinkling  gently — so,   for  a 
heart-beat,  he  saw  her."    (Each  holds  up  a  restful  hand.) 
SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH 

(Executing  three  steps  to  the  left  and  four  to  the  right  and 
spinning  on  his  right  toe.)  Your  Referendunces  I  Most 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  285 

Worthy  and  Grand  Referendunces!  Is  the  High  Court  of  Pro- 
gress of  the  Federated  Republics  of  the  World  now  ready  to 
receive  the  reports  of  the  various  battalions  of  Law,  Order, 
Peace,  Justice,  Truth,  etc.,  accredited  to  this  Court?  They 
await  your  Referendunces'  pleasure  without.  (At  this  another 
herculean  attempt  is  made  to  arouse  the  assembled  judges  of 
the  Musnud.  The  fifty  Dizzards  who  are  in  direct  attendance 
on  the  Moonshees  begin  whistling  between  their  teeth  and 
striking  them  with  their  feather-clubs.  The  one  hundred 
Hoddy-Doddys  stir  up  the  multitude  in  the  front  rows  by 
dusting  off  their  ears  and  noses  with  their  long-poled  feather- 
dusters.  The  one  hundred  Zanys  rattle  their  wind-bags,  and 
the  two  thousand  Loobies  and  Gaberlunzies  read  intently  and 
with  vigor,  each  holding  up  a  hand.  The  five  thousand  Nizys 
hurry  here  and  there  offering  souffle  to  all.) 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  MOONSHEES,  ROCTOR-PROCTORS, 

ZADKIELS,   ETC. 

(Stirring  slightly  and  opening  their  eyes.)  Souffle!  Souffle! 
(Great  panniers  of  souffle  are  fed  to  them,  and  they  relapse 
into  slumber.) 

THE  FIFTY  DIZZARDS 

(Seeing  they  have  the  Moonshees  partially  awake.)  Your 
Referendunces!  Most  worthy  Referendunces!  The  Secretary 
of  the  Honorable  Court  desires  to  know  is  it  ready  to  receive 
the  first  division  of  the  assembled  Battalions  of  Knowledge  now 
about  to  report  as  to  the  present  state  and  progress  of  the 
world?  (A  vast  murmur  of  "Hee-haw!" — the  $oth  century  ex- 
pression of  approval — passes  over  the  assemblage.  SHISH- 
MASH  HASH  HASH  executes  four  more  hand-springs,  lights 
gracefully  on  his  back  and  slowly  draws  his  toes  up  to  his 
fingers,  thus  gradually  assuming  a  standing  position,  and  bows. 
The  fifty  Dizzards  whistle  between  their  teeth  and  beat  the 
Moonshees  vigorously  with  their  feather-clubs.  The  Zanys 
rattle  their  wind-bags  lustily.  Fifty  of  the  one  hundred  Moon- 


286  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

shees  awake  and  call  for  more  souffle.    Five  hundred  tons  are 
at  once  distributed  to  the  audience,  and  quiet  is  restored.) 
[THE  MOONSHEES,  ROCTOR-PROCTORS,  ZADKIELS,  ETC 

(Stirring  feebly  and  pushing  the  feather-dusters  out  of  their 
eyes.  In  chorus.)  What  is  the  question?  What  is  the  ques- 
tion? (They  sink  back  heavily  on  their  pillows.  SHISH- 
MASH  HASH  HASH  throws  four  fits  and  attempts  to  insert 
his  left  foot  in  his  mouth,  then  stands  at  attention  while  four 
Dizzards,  lifting  aloft  silk  banners  on  which  are  pictures  of 
keys  of  knowledge  and  open  books,  fall  to  the  ground  and  get 
up  again.  The  one  hundred  Hoddy-Doddys  tickle  the  noses 
of  the  Moonshees  frantically.  The  five  thousand  Nizys  throw 
handjuls  of  souffle  in  the  faces  of  the  audience  and  spin  on  one 
foot.  The  two  thousand  Loobies  and  Gaberlunzies  rear  and 
plunge,  murmuring  "Shush/  Shush!"  then  read.) 
NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Chief  Presiding  Rejerendunce  of  the  Federated  Court  of 
Progress  of  the  World.  Sitting  up,  opening  one  eye  and 
gazing  about.)  Indeed!  You  say,  do  you?  Well,  let  them 
enter  I  (He  collapses  again.) 

SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH 

(Spinning  away  to  the  stage  entrance,  at  which  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  various  forces  of  Progress  are  waiting  in  parade 
array.)  Are  you  ready?  Are  you  ready?  (A  shout  goes  up. 
He  lifts  both  hands, and  pirouetting  gracefully  backward  toward 
the  Musnud  is  followed  by  the  ist,  $i6th,  3727^,  4728^, 
6914^  and  'ji'j&th  Divisions  of  Descendant  Sons  and  Daugh- 
ters of  Ancient  and  Honorable  Free  and  Accepted  Boy  Scouts, 
Watch  and  Ward  and  Library  Protection  Association  Guards, 
King's  Daughters,  Sabbath  Day  Exclusivists,  Seventh  Day  Ad- 
ventists,  and  Holy  Rollers  in  close  formation.  They  are  all  in 
Empire  Nicollet  silk,  striped  with  blue  bombazine,  ruched  at 
neck  and  feet,  and  carry  immense  banners  of  green  and  yellow 
on  which  are  pictured  barred  library  doors,  sealed  books,  bon- 
fires of  questionable  or  lewd  books,  and  padlocked  library 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  287 

safes.  They  are  preceded  by  and  interlarded  with  silver  and 
gold  harp  bands  in  great  numbers,  as  well  as  a  small  exhibition 
corps  of  Anti-Lewd  Booh  Examiners,  carefully  examining  lewd 
books  after  the  manner  of  the  years  A.  D.  1885-1921.  These 
last  carry  large  red,  yellow  and  green-blue  pencils  and  wear 
horn  glasses  the  size  of  saucers.  They  read,  blush,  and  blue- 
pencil  as  they  come.  They  are  preceded  by  cage-cars  contain- 
ing [one  each}  Ossified  Specimens  of  Ancient  Lewd  Novelist, 
Playwright  and  Poet.  They  pause  and  stand  at  attention  be- 
fore the  Musnud,  giving  first  an  exhibition  of  lewd-book  edit- 
ing, then  the  Free  and  Accepted  and  Descendant  yell,  "Anti- 
Vice  I  Anti-Vice!  Boy  Scouts  Forever!"  after  which  they  clog 
and  whistle.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Scratching  one  ear  and  blinking  his  one  open  eye,  the  while 
the  five  thousand  Nizys  distribute  souffle  and  the  audience 
cheers  vociferously.)  Descendant  Sons  and  Daughters  of 
Ancient  and  Honorable  Free  and  Accepted  Boy  Scouts,  Watch 
and  Ward  Guards,  King's  Daughters,  Sabbath  Day  Adventists, 
Holy  Rollers  (whispers  to  a  Dizzard,  "Did  I  get  them  all 
right?") — we  have,  as  you  know,  as  President  and  Referen- 
dunces  of  this  great  Court,  founded  so  long  ago  by  our  worthy 
predecessor,  Mush  Mush  I,  a  certain  duty  to  perform,  and  that 
is  the  asking  of  our  regular  prepared  and  revered  and  revised 
Sacred  Questions,  the  answers  to  which,  given  as  we  all  know 
you  will  give  them,  constitute  in  themselves  at  once  a  record  and 
a  testimony  to  the  wisdom,  perfection,  peace  and  plenty  to 
which  our  vast  Federated  Republics  and  Peoples  the  world  over 
have  at  last  arrived.  (Great  applause  lasting  one  hour,  during 
which  transcripts  of  the  proceedings  and  speech  thus  far  are 
wirelessed  by  the  Fuddys  to  all  parts  of  the  world.)  Once,  as 
you  well  know  and  as  we  are  sorry  to  remember,  there  existed  a 
certain  amount  of  vice  and  crime  in  the  world  (vast  and  pro- 
longed boo-ing  and  cat-calling) — less  and  less,  we  will  admit, 
as  the  forces  of  righteousness  and  order  such  as  we  represent 


288  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

here  to-day  gained  momentum  (a  second  burst  of  applause 
lasting  one  hour,  during  which  this  portion  of  the  speech  is 
wirelessed.  The  Zadkiels  breathe  heavily),  but  plentiful 
enough — plentiful  enough,  I  am  glad  to  say — Souffle!  Souffle  1 
(he  sighs  and  is  fed) — as  well  as  a  tendency,  disobedient  in 
the  extreme,  to  investigate  and  study  and  doubt  every- 
thing, from  stars  to  ant-hills,  and  even  to  make  light  of 
the  revealed  and  divine  facts  of  Nature,  which  as  we  all  know 
are  irrefutable  and  not  to  be  questioned  and  to  which  our 
hearts  are  always  and  only  our  best  guides.  (Enormous  ap- 
plause, lasting  thirty  minutes.)  Fortunately  for  us  now,  how- 
ever, and  happily,  and  owing,  as  I  may  say,  to  the  benign 
activities  of  those  noble  workers  in  the  cause  of  righteousness, 
Mush  Mush  I,  Bonehead  V,  and  Dish  Rag  III,  who  flour- 
ished A.  D.  1970-2061  in  America  and  elsewhere,  the  virtues  of 
sobriety,  justice,  truth,  mercy,  industry  and  the  like  were,  as 
we  all  well  know,  firmly  and  finally  established.  (Tremendous 
applause,  lasting  one  hundred  and  eight  minutes,  during  which 
seven  hundred  wash-boilers  of  souffle  are  consumed.  Wireless 
messages  are  sent  to  all  parts.)  Thanks  to  them  and  their 
beneficent  efforts,  we  do  not  attempt  to  investigate  any  more. 
(Prolonged  cheering.)  We  do  not  seek  to  reason  any  more. 
(Immense  cheering,  lasting  two  hours.)  Man,  as  you  all  well 
know,  has  seen  the  line  of  his  duty  and  has  followed  it  closely. 
(More  cat-calling.)  With  the  greatest  care  we  have  been 
able  to  eliminate  not  only  those  besetting  vices  which  scarred 
the  face  of  man  with  their  hideous  thoughts,  but  also  those 
equally  great  vices  of  curiosity  and  speculation  in  regard  to 
chemistry,  philosophy,  physics,  astronomy,  sociology,  political 
economy,  those  low  and  evil  so-called  sciences  which  once  so 
disturbed  and  irritated  and  afflicted  the  human  mind.  (A  burst 
of  applause,  lasting  forty-three  minutes.)  They  have  been  done 
for,  and  instead  we  have  strictly  and  sensibly  confined  our- 
selves, I  am  happy  to  state,  to  those  more  acceptable  evidences 
of  our  place  hi  Nature  and  our  duties,  as  revealed  by  those  re- 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  289 

nowned  and  profound  teachers  and  thinkers,  our  noble  and  re- 
vered ancestors,  Billy  Sunday  the  Great,  he  of  blessed  memory 
(applause,  lasting  one  hour) — Ralph  Waldensicuss  Trinecuss 
of  Boston  (applause,  lasting  fifty  minutes) — Arise-and-Sweat 
Marden  (applause,  lasting  forty  minutes) — Erbert  Goughman 
(applause,  lasting  thirty  minutes) — Philip  Dugmore  Potts 
(applause,  lasting  twenty  minutes) — and  Edith  Whiller  Nbx 
Nox  (applause,  lasting  ten  minutes) — revealers  and  thinkers 
all,  the  true  forerunners  and  prophets  of  our  present  peaceful 
and  happy  state.  (Prolonged  applause,  enduring  over  seven- 
hundred  minutes,  during  which  NOXUS  and  the  Moonshees 
snore  and  the  two  thousand  Loobies  and  Gaberlunzies  read  long 
and  refreshing  passages  from  the  works  of  the  individuals  men- 
tioned. The  Fuddys  sizz  at  their  task.) 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  HODDY-DODDYS 

(As  the  applause  subsides,  feathering  the  face  of  the  Moon- 
shees.) Awake,  your  Referendunces,  awake  1  (They  pole- 
vault  in  front  of  the  Musnud.) 

THE  FIFTY  DIZZARDS 

(Whistling  between  their  teeth  and  striking  with  their  feath- 
er clubs.)    Oh,  your  Very  Great  Referendunces!     Oh!     Come 
to!     Come  to!     (They  chatter  and  clog.) 
NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Batting  an  eye  and  being  lifted  to  a  sitting  position.)  Ah, 
yes!  Ah,  yes!  Let  me  see  ...  where  was  I?  (A  Dizzard, 
prompted  by  a  Fuddy,  repeats  his  last  sentence.)  Ah,  yes  I  As 
I  was  saying,  these,  our  revered  leaders,  taught  us.  It  is  to 
them,  their  patient  and  enduring  labors,  their  deep,  even  pro- 
found, cogitations  as  to  life,  that  we  all  owe  all  that  we  enjoy 
and  revere  so  deeply  to-day — our  peace,  our  freedom  from  dis- 
turbing thought,  from  the  besetting  vice  of  questioning  or  in- 
vestigating. All  we  have  to  do  now  is  ask  and  re-ask  and  affirm 
and  re-affirm  our  Sacred  Questions,  so  ably  asked  and  answered 
so  many  centuries  since  by  our  noble  forerunners,  Bonehead  V. 
and  Dish  Rag  III.  (Separate  and  prolonged  applause  at  each 


2QO  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

name,  during  which  Podunkus  again  slumbers,  is  feathered  and 
clubbed  and  lifted  to  a  sitting  position.)  Ah,  yes!  Ah,  yesl 
The  Questions — the  Questions.  (He  fumbles  weakly  about, 
while  seven  Dizzards  hand  him  seven  engrossed  and  gold-plated 
copies  of  the  regulation  Sacred  Questions  as  made  and  provided 
for  all  such  occasions.  He  stares  at  one  feebly  and  continues.) 
Ah  yes!  Now  I  have  them!  The  Questions — the  Questions, 
on  which,  as  I  was  saying,  are  based,  as  on  a  rock,  all  our 
peace,  security,  freedom  from  thought;  the  very,  indeed,  pil- 
lows— I  mean  pillars — of  our  ease  and  comfort.  The  Sacred 
Questions!  To  be  sure!  Question  One — let  me  see — Question 
One — Question  One  (aside  "Where  is  it?"  A  Dizzard  points 
to  it.) — Question  One  is  most  important,  the  very  corner-stone, 
I  might  say,  of  our  undisturbed  security  and  ease  in  thought- 
lessness. (Examines  it  closely.)  It  reads — it  reads — Ah  yes! 
—Now  I  have  it!— "Have  you  kept  the  faith?"  That's  it. 
"Have  you  kept  the  faith?"  To  be  sure!  Have  we  kept  it,  I 
might  say?  Almost  the  most  sacred  of  all  our  Questions! 
Have  we  kept  the  faith?  (He  mumbles  feebly  on.)  That's  it!. 
Have  we  kept  the  faith? 

THE  iST,  3i6TH,  3727™,  4728TH,  (fcuTH,  AND  7I78TH 
(Standing  at  attention  and  in  unison.) 
We  have,  we  have! 
We  have,  have,  have! 

(They  clog.  Immense  applause  from  the  audience,  lasting 
thirty  minutes.  The  First  and  Second  Readers  read  toothing 
passages.) 

THE  MOONSHEES,   ROCTOR-PROCTORS,   GAMALIELS, 
ZADKIELS 

(Turning  on  the  other  side  and  imbibing  souffle.)  Excellent! 
Excellent!  Couldn't  be  better!  They  have  kept  the  faith! 
Most  comforting.  Ah! 

NOXUS PODUNKUS 

(Reclining  and  imbibing  souffle.)  Charming!  Charming! 
Most  sweet  of  them!  The  dear,  dear  things!  They  would 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  291 

keep  anything  we  asked  them  to!    It  is  really  too  wonderful! 
(He  sighs.) 

THE  FEDERATED  SPECTATORS 

(One  hundred  thousand  strong.)  Hey!  Hey!  Hey!  Rah! 
Rah!  Rah!  Federated  Republics  forever!  Long  live  the 
Court  of  Progress!  (The  cheering  continues  for  fifteen  min- 
utes.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(When  comparative  silence  is  restored^  and  blinking  his 
open  eye.)  Beautiful!  Beautiful!  It  is  as  I  thought!  A 
wondrous  scene!  Now  for  Question  Number — let  me  see 
(eleven  Dizzards  point  to  the  place) — Ah,  yes!  To  be  sure! 
(Reads.)  Question  Number  Two — a  wonderful  question — a 
deep  and  subtly  devised  question — a  question  which,  as  I  may 
say,  has  done  as  much  as  any  of  the  others  to  persuade  us  to 
and  keep  us  all  in  that  happy  and  unquestioning  frame  of 
mind  which,  as  we  all  know,  we  now  so  wisely  seek  to  main- 
tain— Souffle!  Souffle!  (he  imbibes) — a  question  the  like  of 
which  is  not  to  be  found  in  any  other  sacred  code  the  world  has 
ever  known — and  here,  my  dear  fellow-Federationists  (he 
raises  a  hand)t  and  here  is  it:  Question  Two — Ah,  yes!  (reads) 
"Is  it  not  true  that  all  men  are  now  honest,  kind,  true,  moral, 
virtuous  and  wise?"  (He  pauses  for  breath  and  looks  benignly 
about.) 

THE  iST,  3i6TH,  372;TH,  4728TH,  6gi4TH,  AND  7i;8TH 

(Jigging  vigorously.)  They  are!    They  are! 
They  rarr!  rarr!  rarrl 
(They  walk  on  their  hands.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

Beautiful!  Beautiful!  Never  have  I  heard  such  perfect 
teamwork!  It  is  wonderful!  Not  so,  my  fellow  Moonshees? 

(He  turns.) 

THE  MOONSHEES,  PUNDITS,  ZADKIELS,  ETC. 

(Turning  over  and  snoring.)  Excellent!  Couldn't  be  better! 
They  do  perfect  work!  (They  each  catch  a  wink  of  sleep.) 


292  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Aroused  and  scratching  the  back  of  his  neck,  the  while  he 
eyes  them  feelingly.)  It  is  too  delightful!  That  I  should 
have  lived  to  have  the  exalted  honor  of  presiding  on  so  wonder- 
ful an  occasion!  But  now  for  Question  Three,  my  dears- 
Question  Three — another  beautiful  question  (he  fumbles  fool- 
ishly  about  seeking  the  tablet.  Seventeen  Gizzards  point  to 
it.)— Ah,  yes!  Ah,  yes!  Very  difficult  to  manage  all  of 
these  questions!  But  here  it  is! — And  now  for  Question  Three 
— a  lovely  question!  A  question  lovely!  I  almost  hate  to  read 
it  and  have  it  all  over  with!  (Reads.)  "And  that  all  women 
are  as  pure  as  driven  snow?"  (Pauses  and  gazes  about  ecstati- 
cally, one  hand  up.) 

THE  iST,  3i6TH,  37*7™,  4728TH,  6914^,  AND  7i;8TH 
(Executing  cart-wheels  in  circles.) 

Aye!  Aye!  Aye!       Aye!  Aye!  Aye! 
'Tis  as  easy  to  say  as  Pie!  Pie!  Pie! 
(They  end  by  waving  with  their  feet.) 

THE  FEDERATED  SPECTATORS 
Hey!  Hey!  Hey!       Hey!  Hey!  Hey! 
The  world's  now  safe  for  ever  and  a  day! 
(An  hour  of  unbroken  applause  follows.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(As  quiet  is  once  more  restored  and  he  is  dusted  into  semi- 
consciousness.)  Quite  so!  Quite  so!  Forever  and  a  day! 
Ah!  And — and  (he  looks  about  for  his  tablet  and  twenty- 
seven  Dizzards  hand  him  each  a  sacred  plate.) — and  that- 
let  me  see — Ah,  yes! — Question  Four!  Question  Four!  Here 
it  is!  (Reads.)  "And  that  God  is  always  on  His  Throne?" 
(He  collapses  from  exhaustion.) 

THE  iST,  3i6TH,  3727TH,  4728TH,  6QI4TH,  AND  7i;8TH 

(Falling  fiat  on  their  backs.) 

He  is!  He  is!  It  is  so  plain 
Upon  His  Throne  He  doth  remain! 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  293 

By  day  or  night,  in  dark  or  light, 
We  feel  His  presence  shining  bright  I 

All's  well  with  the  world! 
(They  roll  to  and  fro  in  rows  of  one  hundred  each.) 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  THOUSAND  SPECTATORS 
(Uproariously.) 

Hey!     Hey!     What  a  glorious  day! 
Hey!     Hey!     What  a  glorious  day! 

(The  cheering  is  resumed  for  fifteen  minutes  more,  during 
which  ten  vanloads  of  souffle  are  distributed.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(After  order  has  been  restored  and  surveying  his  associates 
of  the  Musnud  sleepily.)  Perfect!  Perfect! — or  nearly  so! 
Beautiful!  I  never  saw  anything  so  well  done!  Never!  Such 
order!  Such  union!  But — let  me  see — I  believe  these  are  all 
the  questions  to  be  asked  of  these  divisions,  are  they  not? 
(Looks  about  him  helplessly  and  yet  benignly.  The  fifty  Diz- 
zards  all  rush  together  and  confer.  The  Hoddy-Doddys  ditto. 
The  Zanys  ditto.  The  Loobies  and  Gaberlunzies  bite  their 
nails,  then  rush  together  and  mumble.  The  Moonshees  sit  up 
and  confer  with  PODUNKUS.  He  proceeds.)  Ah  yes! 
As  I  was  saying!  Quite  so!  Quite  so!  Since,  then,  it  is  the 
opinion  of  the  Associated  Members  of  the  Musnud  that  the 
report  of  the  Descendant  Sons  and  Daughters  of  Ancient  and 
Honorable  Free  and  Accepted  Boy  Scouts  and  And-  (he  reads 
the  entire  roster)  seems  to  accord  with  the  progress  of  the  year 
as  reported  to  us  from  all  outlying  sections  of  the  Federation, 
and  it  is  their  wish  that  it  be  accepted  and  offered  and  en- 
grossed in  the  records  of  the  Musnud  as  a  true  picture  of  the 
state  and  progress  of  the  world  for  this  year  of  our  Lord  A.  D. 
3913,  they  will  signify  as  much  by  saying  "Aye,"  contrary, 
"Nay."  The  "Ayes"  have  it.  The  report  of  these  excelling 
representatives  is  accepted  and  they  are  excused.  (He  falls 
back  and  into  a  deep  sleep.  The  Moonshees  do  likewise.) 


294  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  MOONSHEES 
(Weakly,  in  their  sleep).    Soufflel     Souffle! 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  THOUSAND  SPECTATORS 
Hey!  Hey!  Hey!     'Tis  a  perfect  day! 
'Tis  a  perfect  day!     'Tis  a  perfect  day! 
Hey!  Hey!  Hey!     'Tis  a  perfect  day! 
(They  cheer  for  one  solid  hour.) 

THE  iST,  3i6TH,  372;TH,  4728TH,  6914™,  AND  7i;8TH 
(Ricochetting  and  executing  triple  hand-springs,  the  while 
SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH  sidesteps  and  returns  to  the  main 
stage  entrance ,  left.) 

What  pleasure,  oh!     What  pleasure,  oh! 
To  know  the  world  is  perfect,  so 
That  never  now  by  day  or  night 
Need  any  one  feel  fear  or  fright. 
(They  zigzag  gaily  in  ranks  of  one  thousand  and  exit.) 

SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH 

(At  the  stage  entrance,  surveying  one  hundred  and  fifty 
divisions  of  Descendant  Sons  and  Daughters  of  Ancient  and 
Honorable  Moving  Picture  Censors,  Sabbath  Day  Observance 
Leaguers,  Baptist  and  Methodist  Evangelists,  and  Non-Smok- 
ers' Social  Unionists,  now  ready  and  in  marching  order  just 
outside  the  tent  entrance.  These  have  arranged  themselves 
in  battalions  of  two  thousand  each  and  are  arrayed  in  snow- 
white  frock  coats,  bright  red  silk  hats,  lavender  pants 
or  skirts,  as  the  case  may  be,  and  carry  bright  brass  drum- 
major  batons.  Numerous  bands  of  Descendant  and  Amal- 
gamated Sons  and  Daughters  of  Ancient  and  Honorable  Anti- 
Saloon  Leaguers  and  Billysundays  are  arrayed  in  pink- 
flowered  business  suits  and  silver-green  capes,  carrying  hatchets 
and  bearing  aloft  the  portrait  of  their  patron  saint,  Mrs.  Carrie 
Nation,  who  flourished  A.  D.  1884-1913,  playing  on  silver  and 
tin  horns,  wind  instruments,  hew  gags  and  jew' sharps.  These 
are  preceded  by  cage-cars  containing  one  each  of  Ossified 
Specimens  of  Anciet^t  Cigarette  Fiend,  Simon-pure  American 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  295 

Bartender,  Lewd  Scenario  Writer,  Sabbath  Day  Breaker.  The 
bands  begin  playing  "All  Hail  the  Peace  Which  Now  Pre- 
vails!" As  they  enter,  preceded  by  SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH 
with  his  head  between  his  legs  and  walking  on  his  hands  to  the 
Musnud,  forty  thousand  members  of  the  audience  rise  and 
stand  on  their  heads.  Another  forty  thousand  sink  to  the  floor 
between  their  seats  and  gasp.  The  five  thousand  Nizys  pass 
swiftly  among  them  administering  souffle.  The  first  and\ 
second  readers  read  rapidly.  SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH, 
landing  on  his  feet  as  he  reaches  the  Musnud  and  be- 
ginning to  jig.)  Will  the  High  and  Mighty  Referendunces 
of  the  Federated  Musnud  of  the  World  deign  to  notice 
these  humble  instruments  of  moral  intercession  here  gathered 
from  all  parts  of  the  world  to  testify  at  this  great  review  to  the 
blessings  of  peace,  morality,  fecundity  and  other  social  virtues? 
(As  he  says  this  he  executes  nine  flip-flaps,  whereat  the  great 
assemblage  bursts  into  thunders  of  applause.  The  fifty  Diz- 
zards  on  the  Musnud  leap  on  each  other's  necks  as  they  whistle 
between  their  teeth.  The  one  hundred  Zanys  rattle  their  wind- 
bags furiously.  NOXUS  PODUNKUS,  being  simultaneously 
beaten  by  four  stuffed  clubs  and  tickled  by  jour  feather-dusters, 
while  two  Dizzards  whistle  in  his  ears,  opens  both  eyes  and 
looks  blandly  around.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(With  a  fat,  ingratiating  smile,  as  the  uproar  continues.) 
Are  we  now  beholding  more  divisions  of  the  unconquerable 
forces  of  Truth,  Virtue,  Justice,  Sobriety  and  Righteousness? 
Good!  Good!  (He  opens  his  mouth,  which  is  immediately 
filled  with  souffle.) 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY  DIVISIONS 

(Cakewalking,  shamble-shuffling  and  tossing  their  hatchets, 
batons,  musical  instruments,  etc.,  aloft.)  Hail  I  Hail!  The 
end  of  shame!  (They  sing.) 

'Tis  now  that  we  with  joy  behold 
The  earth  of  virtue  yield  fourfold 


296  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

Of  truth  and  right  the  crop  is  great — 
Indeed,  enough  the  world  to  sate! 

(Melody  the  same  as  "Behold  the  Power"  To  be  sung  with- 
out lining.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Scratching  one  ear  and  making  a  supreme  effort  to  think.) 
A  charming  sight!  A  charming  sight!  The  world  is  indeed 
progressing!  Allow  us  to  congratulate  you,  my  dears  and  dear- 
esses!  Allow  us!  Allow  us!  Perfection  is  at  hand !  It  has  been 
long  in  coming,  but  now,  as  I  might  say,  it  has  reached  its  desti- 
nation. Souffle!  Souffle!  (A  pannier  is  brought  and  fed  him.) 
As  I  was  saying  to  those  last  dear  battalions  who  so  gracefully 
testified  to  our  Peace  and  Progress,  Security  and  the  like,  it 
now  becomes  my  duty  to  read  from  our  revered  and  Sacred 
Questions — the  compendium,  as  you  know,  of  all  our  Knowl- 
edge, Law,  Intelligence^— Questions  Five,  Six,  Seven  and  Eight 
— I  believe  that  is  the  allotted  number,  is  it  not?  (Thirty-one 
Dizzards  nod.) — and  as  I  do  so  will  you  please  answer  in  unison 
so  that  all  may  know — the  world — the  universe  indeed — how 
well  we  understand,  how  firmly  we  know,  believe,  that  which 
has  brought  us  to  our  present  state  of  peace  and  comfort,  our 
ease  of  mind  and  body.  (Reads.)  Question  Five — Question 
Five — ah  yes!  Just  as  I  thought!  (Reads,  one  hand  up.) 
"There  is  a  God,  is  there  not?  We  know  that,  do  we  not?" 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY  DIVISIONS 
(Jabbing  their  batons  into  the  ground,  tossing  them  in  the 
air  and  then  catching  them  again.) 

There  is!     There  is!     We  do!    We  do! 
What  joy  to  know  'tis  true,  true,  true! 
(At  this  ninety-nine  Moonshees,  who  have  risen  to  a  sitting 
position,  jail  back,  murmuring  "Splendid!     Splendid!     Won- 
derjull"    The  Hoddy-Doddys  exclaim  the  same  thing  and  prac- 
tice at  sword-play  with  their  feather-dusters,  while  the  Diz- 
zards play  at  leap-frog  and  the  Zanys  beat  each  other  with 
their  empty  wind-bags.    The  five  thousand  Nizys  plunge  their 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  297 

heads  into  the  souffle  but  withdraw  them  quickly  and  ladle 
out  cones  to  the  mass.  The  two  thousand  Loobies  and  Gaber- 
lunzies  read  many  enchanting  passages  as  the  audience  ap- 
plauds, after  which  the  Dizzards  resume  normal  positions  and 
lay  about  them  with  their  stuffed  clubs.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Scratching  his  nose  and  making  another  great  effort  to 
think,  the  while  he  beats  the  ratting  before  him.)  Ah,  yes! 
That  is  it!  "There  is!  We  do!"  It  is  on  our  knowledge  of 
that  that  we  rest  so  peacefully,  all  else  being  of  no  importance. 
(Reads.)  Question  Six — (pauses) — "He  is  on  His  Throne, 
is  He  not?  We  know  that,  do  we  not?" 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY  DIVISIONS 
(Jigging)     He  is!    He  is!     We  do!    We  do' 
This  truth  is  ever  new  and  true! 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Sinking  into  his  pillows  and  peacefully  closing  his  eyes.) 
Quite  so!  Quite  so!  We  need  that  knowledge  to  sustain  us  in 
our  present  ease.  It  is  so  comforting!  As  I  often  say,  what 
would  we  do  without  our  dear  Questions?  (He  falls  asleep. 
Seven  Dizzards  and  seven  Hoddy-Doddys  club  and  feather 
him.  He  resumes.)  And  now  for — ah  yes! — let  me  see — Ques- 
tion— Question  (various  Dizzards  gather  about  him  and  point) 
— Ah,  yes!  Seven — Question  Seven!  (Ecstatically.)  Let  me 
read  this  to  you,  this  beautiful  Question,  the  answer  to  which, 
as  I  so  often  say,  reassures  us  all  so  much,  keeps  us  all  so 
sweet  and  content,  always.  (Raises  one  hand.)  "All  is  well 
with  the  world,  is  it  not?  We  know  that,  do  we  not?  It  is, 

is  it  not?"    Come  now,  all  together — One,  Two,  Three 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY  DIVISIONS 
Yea  ho!    Yea  ho!    Yea,  Bo!    Yea,  Bo! 
A  truer  thing  we  do  not  know! 
(They  fall  to  the  ground  and  roll  rapturously  to  and  fro.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 
(As  wave  on  wave  of  applause  sweeps  over  the  pavilion  and 


298  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

bags  out  the  sides  and  top,  leaning  forward  and  opening  one 
eye.)     'Tis  beautifully  said!     Beautifully  said!     A  perfect 
answer  to  a  perfect  Question!     A  wonderful  testimony  to  the 
ever  upwardness  and  onwardness  of  things!     It  is  almost  more 
than  one  could  hope  for — than  any  one  can  hope  for!     And 
now,  my  dears  and  dearesses,  comes  Question — (looks  at  the 
tablet  while  all  the  Dizzards  lean  and  point) — Question  Eight, 
a  very,  very  great  Question,  a  Question  which,  as  I  always  say, 
has  undoubtedly  more  than  any  other  Question  brought  us  at 
last  to  this  very  perfect  and  peaceful  state,  in  which  we  rest  as, 
I  might  say,  a  babe  in  its  cradle,  as  a — a — Souffle!  (he  is  fed). 
Here  it  is:  "How  is  it  that  we  know  that  God  is  on  His  Throne 
and  all  is  well  with  the  world?    How  is  it?"    Can't  you  see 
how  important  that  is,  how  wonderful?    Come  now!    We  must 
have  a  perfect  and  compelling  answer  to  this!     All  together — 
One,  Two,  Three!     (Leans  forward  expectantly,  intently.) 
THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY  DIVISIONS 
Our  hearts,  our  hearts,  they  tell  us  so — 
What  is  it  that  our  hearts  don't  know! 
(Each  places  a  hand  over  his  heart.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Falling  back  on  seven  pillows  and  taking  a  deep  breath.) 
Beautiful!  Beautiful!  Even  so!  And  given  as  it  should  be! 
Let  me  hear  you  say  that  again,  my  dears  and  dearesses!  Let 
me  hear  it  again!  (They  repeat  it,  waving  pink  handkerchiefs. 
The  audience  bursts  into  deafening  applause  lasting  seventy- 
eight  minutes.  The  Loobies  and  Gaberlunzies  leap  in  the  air, 
turn  three  somersaults  before  landing,  and  fall  on  their  feet. 
Five  thousand  wirelesses  are  sent.  NOXUS  PODUNKUS,  fall- 
ing back  and  strangling  with  joy.)  This  is  too  much!  Too 
much!  Who  can  say  now  that  the  world  has  not  progressed! 
(He  is  lifted  up,  feathered  and  doused  with  souffle.)  With  the 
consent  of  my  fellow  Moonshees  (looks  about  him  affably  at  the 
sleeping  Moonshees),  I  will  now  excuse  these  very  good  people. 
(Feeble  calls  of  "Beautiful!  Beautiful/"  and  "Let  them  be  ex- 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  299 

cused!"  from  the  Moonshees.)     You  may  go,  my  dears  and 
dearessesl     You  may  go!     (He  collapses.) 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY  DIVISIONS 

(Executing  a  flank  movement  and  assuming  an  open  forma- 
tion five  hundred  abreast  and  marching  briskly  away,  twirling 
their  batons  and  wagging  their  heads.)  All  hail  the  power  of 
Podunks'  name!  (They  exit.  Enter  seven  thousand  Union 
Astronomers  and  four  thousand  Federated  College  Philosophers 
in  close  formation,  all  in  green  knee  pants,  white  spike  tail- 
coats and  blue  silk  hats.  The  Astronomers  carry  green  tele- 
scopes instead  of  canes.  The  Philosophers  are  all  chewing  tutti- 
frutti.  They  are  preceded  by  cage-cars  containing  each  one 
Specimen  of  Ossified  and  Ancient  and  Unmoral  Stoic,  Nietzsch- 
eanf  Pragmatist,  Anti-Christ,  Chemist  and  Physicist.) 
SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH 

(Preceding  them  and  climbing  up  the  feather  pole  of  a 
Hoddy-Doddy  he  has  seized.)  The  Union  Astronomers,  your 
Referendunces!  The  Federated  College  Philosophers,  your 
Referendunces!  (He  leaps  and  tumbles  three  times  around  the 
arena,  holding  his  toes  with  his  hands.) 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  HODDY-DODDYS 

(Pole-vaulting  over  the  procession  as  it  approaches.)  The 
Union  Astronomers,  your  Referendunces!  The  Federated 
Moral  College  Philosophers!  (The  Dizzards  give  an  exhibi- 
tion of  feather-club  swallowing.  The  five  thousand  Nizys  each 
juggle  nine  ice-cream  cones  in  the  air.) 

THE  SEVEN  THOUSAND  UNION  ASTRONOMERS 

(Marching  to  "Oh,  Believe  Me  If  All  Those  Endearing 
Young  Charms,"  and  doing  a  hop,  skip  and  jump  as  they  near 
the  Musmid.) 

The  universe  is  moral!    The  universe  is  moral! 

'Tis  as  true — 'tis  as  true — 
As  that  a  green  horse  isn't  sorrel ! 

(One-half  the  division  stand  on  their  heads,  the  others  on 
their  feet.) 


3oo  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

THE  FIFTY  DIZZARDS 

(Receiving  souffle  handed  up  by  the  Nizys  below.  In  chorus.) 
"The  universe  is  moral!    The  universe  is  moral! 

'Tis  as  true — 'tis  as  true — 
As  that  a  green  horse  isn't  sorrel ! " 

THE   ELEVEN   THOUSAND   PHILOSOPHERS   AND 

ASTRONOMERS 

(In  chorus)  Hail !  Hail !    The  Comet's  Tail ! 
All  is  well!    All  is  swell! 
Never  was  there  an  age  like  this! 
(They  wave  their  feet  or  hands,  as  the  case  may  be.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Rising  on  one  elbow  and  rubbing  his  eyes.)  What!  What! 
More?  What  have  we  here?  The  Union  Astronomers,  you 
say?  The  Federated  College  Philosophers?  Excellent!  A  fine 
body  of  men,  indeed!  And,  as  you  say,  the  universe  is  moral. 
Very,  very,  very  moral.  One  of  the  most  moral  universes  I 
have  ever  known.  (Scratches  an  ear  and  sinks  into  his  cushions, 
but  the  nearest  Dizzards  lift  him  up.) 

SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH 

(Excitedly  touching  his  toes  with  his  hands  nine  times.)  The 
Questions,  your  Noble  Referendunce!  The  Sacred  Questions! 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Heavily  and  benignly.)  Ah,  yes!  Ah,  yes!  The  Sacred 
Questions!  It  is  not  intention,  but  memory,  that  seems  to  fail 
me.  Quite  so — the  Sacred  Questions!  (He  takes  one  of  fifty 
plates  offered  him  and  examines  it  closely.)  Ah  yes!  Here  it 
is!  One  of  the  most  significant  and  wonderful  questions  that 
has  ever  been  planned,  I  think,  to  ease  our  minds  and  comfort 
us.  (Reads.)  Question  Nine:  "Is  it  not  true  that  the  universe 
is  ordained  for  Truth,  Justice,  Virtue,  Mercy,  Tenderness, 
Purity?"  (His  voice  trails  off  in  utter  exhaustion.) 

THE  SEVEN  THOUSAND  UNION  ASTRONOMERS 
(Doing  a  light  come-all-ye  and  waving  red  bandana  hand- 
kerchiefs.) 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  301 

It  is  I    It  is!    We  know!    We  know! 
The  stars  we  see,  they  tell  us  so! 

THE  FOUR  THOUSAND  COLLEGE  PHILOSOPHERS 
(Masticating  their  gum  vigorously.) 

It  is!     It  is  I    Hail,  loud  and  long! 
Our  works,  they  sing  the  same  sweet  song! 
(Loud  and  prolonged  cheering  by  the  audience.     Wirelesses 
are  sent  to  the  waiting  world.     The  Dizzards  gnaw  excitedly 
at  their  feather-clubs,  then  do  a  double-quick  clog.     The  two 
thousand  Loobies  and  Gaberlunzies  read  many,  many  soothing 
passages.    The  Nizys  dole  out  souffle.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Biting  his  nails  and  crossing  his  legs.)  So!  Quite  so!  The 
stars  tell  us!  It  couldn't  be  different!  And  now,  my  dears 
(sighs  from  weariness),  for  the  Tenth  Great  Question — one  of 
those  beautiful  things  that  I  always  love  to  read  and  re-read. 
The  most  important  one,  I  always  think,  in  so  far  as  astronomy 
is  concerned,  that  has  ever  been  devised.  A  Question  so  per- 
fect that,  when  we  pause  to  consider  its  absolute  truthfulness 
and  perfection,  answers  fully — oh,  so  fully! — all  our  astro- 
nomical needs.  (Reads.)  "Are  not  the  stars  maintained  in 
their  courses  in  order  that  man  may  progress  and  be  moral?" 
(He  contemplates  a  fly  which  has  lit  on  the  end  of  his  nose.) 

THE  UNION  ASTRONOMERS 

(Juggling  their  telescopes  after  the  manner  of  a  shillalah  and 
doing  a  come-all-ye.) 

They  are!    They  are!    The  stars,  they  say 
That  man  to  truth  is  on  his  way! 

THE  COLLEGE  PHILOSOPHERS 
(Catching  hands  and  dancing  around  in  a  circle.) 
The  Universe  was  made  for  man — 
And  man  for  good,  by  God's  dear  plan! 
(They  slap  each  other  on  the  back.) 


302  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Rolling  back  in  ecstasy  and  smearing  his  face  with  souffle.) 
Lovely!  Lovely!  "The  stars  they  say!"  This  certainly  is 
the  most  inspiring  session  we  have  ever  had!  Such  unity  of 
feeling!  Such  innate  wisdom!  Surely  the  waiting  world  must 
realize  now  how  completely  we  have  progressed — how  abso- 
lutely— (he  sinks  to  his  pillows  and  is  lifted  to  a  sitting  posi- 
tion by  the  Dizzards,  who  place  the  tablet  in  his  hand,  while 
the  Moonshees  turn  over  and  murmur  "Excellent!  Excellent!" 
The  wireless  operators  send  out  five  thousand  messages.  PO- 
DUNKUS pulls  himself  together  and  continues.)  And  now,  my 
dear  children — and  now  comes  one  of  the  keenest,  the  most 
searching  really,  of  all  the  Great  and  Sacred  Questions  made 
and  provided  for  these  immortal  occasions  and  handed  down  to 
us  by  our  renowned  and  dear  bygone  leaders  and  saints,  Bone- 
head  V.  and  Dish  Rag  III.  Really,  when  I  stop  to  think  of 
their  great  work  for  mankind,  when — (he  sinks  back  and  the 
Hoddy-Doddys  proceed  to  dust  him  off) — Ah  yes!  Ah,  yes! 
Question  Eleven — almost  the  most  wonderful,  the  most  impor- 
tant of  all — (reads) — "How — how,"  so  it  reads,  "do  we  know 
that,  me  good  men?  How?  (He  smiles  and  waits  expectantly , 
one  finger  up.)  How  do  we  know?  That  is  the  famous,  the 
keenest  and  most  searching  of  all  the  Twelve  Sacred  Questions. 
How? 

THE  SEVEN  THOUSAND  UNION  ASTRONOMERS 
(Telescope  to  eye  and  weaving  in  and  out  in  a  wild  dance.) 
Our  hearts,  they  tell  us!    We  can  hear 
This  truth  they  whisper,  year  by  year! 
(They  kiss  each  other  on  each  cheek.) 

THE  FOUR  THOUSAND  COLLEGE  PHILOSOPHERS 
(In  chorus,  and  doing  a  hop,  skip  and  jump.) 
Our  hearts  do  tell  us!    We  do  know — 
Besides,  our  Astronomers  do  say  so! 

(They  swallow  their  gum.  The  multitude  breaks  into  tu- 
multuous applause,  which  lasts  for  one  hour,  during  which  one 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  303 

thousand  messages  are  sent  out  and  five  thousand  more  wash- 
boilers  of  souffle  are  consumed.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Aiming  at  the  fly  and  missing  it.)  Ah!  Ah!  Could  the 
world  wish  for  anything  more — more  enlightening?  Our 
hearts  tell  us!  Oh,  dear!  Our  dear  Astronomers  and  Col- 
lege Philosophers  stand  in  absolute  accord  as  to  this!  Won- 
derful! Wonderful!  (Turning  to  the  Musnud.)  I  am  sure 
that  you,  my  dear  fellow  Moonshees  and  Savants,  must  be 
greatly  impressed  and  inspired  by  this!  It  is  what  we  all  so 
much  wish  to  hear,  always!  (PODUNKUS  rolls  over  on  his 
side,  while  the  Moonshees  turn  over  and  murmur  "Excellent! 
Exquisitely  put  I  Couldn't  be  better!"  The  Union  Astronomers 
and  College  Philosophers  now  march  off  singing,  "Hail!  Hail! 
The  Gang's  all  here!"  the  Philosophers  weeping  on  each 
other's  necks  for  joy  while  the  Astronomers  wig-wag  the  song 
with  their  telescopes.  The  Moonshees,  Zadkiels,  etc.,  squeak 
jeebly  for  souffle. 

(Enter  forty-eight  divisions  of  five  hundred  each  of  Descend- 
ant Sons  and  Daughters  of  Ancient  and  Honorable  Anti-Vice 
Crusaders,  Prison  Visitation  Leaguers,  Moral  Prophylaxers,  An- 
ti-Contraceptionists,  Eugenic  Sires  and  Women  Magazine  Edi- 
tors, in  green,  yellow  and  blue  burnouses  and  pink  papier-mache 
casques,  fox-trotting  as  they  come.  An  immense  banner  of 
Chinese  silk  and  Australian  wool  mixed  [symbolic  of  the  gen- 
eral sequacity,  tranquillity,  plasticity,  yet  not  to  say  florescence 
or  flaccidity  which  now  hovers  over  all  the  world}  is  carried 
before.  This  same  contains  a  pale  representation  of  a  jail,  such 
as  existed  in  former  centuries  when  the  world  was  evil,  but  now 
[in  the  picture],  in  order  to  symbolize  the  present  peace  and 
progress  of  the  world,  crumbled  and  covered  with  vines  and 
spiderwebs,  while  jour  angels  of  peace,  one  at  each  corner,  hold 
up  palms  of  victory.  They  are  preceded  by  cage-cars  con- 
taining each  one  Specimen  of  Ossified  and  Ancient  White- 
Slaver,  Gambler,  Thief  and  Predatory  Rich.  As  they  approach, 


304  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

the  Loobies,  Gaberlunzies,  Nizys  and  Zanys  bustle  hither  and 
thither  among  the  audience,  the  former  reading,  the  latter  call- 
ing for  silence  and  explaining  the  exact  significance  of  the 
symbol  while  they  ladle  out  souffle.  On  and  before  the  Musnud 
the  Eoddy-Doddys  and  Dizzards  hover  over  NOXUS  and  the 
Moonshees,  who  have  fallen  into  a  sound  sleep.  Two  thousand 
members  of  the  Inter-Federated  Association  of  Inter-Asiatic 
Descendant  Sons  and  Daughters  of  Ancient  and  Honorable 
Eugenic  Sires  approach  first,  the  men  wearing  green  Zouave 
trousers,  white  silk  overcoats  and  blue  shakos.  They  carry  lil- 
ies. The  ladies  are  wrapped  in  nine  layers  of  pink  asbestos 
each  one  inch  thick  and  carry  poisoned  hatpins.  After  charg- 
ing and  counter-charging  they  form  a  square  in  front  of  the 
Musnud,  the  ladies  stacking  hatpins,  the  men  presenting  lilies.) 
SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH 

(Tumbling  back  from  the  entryway  where  he  has  been  super- 
vising the  general  formation  of  the  new  division.)  Your 
Referendunces!  Your  Referendunces!  Look,  oh  look!  The 
Inter-Federated  Association  of  Inter-Asiatic  Descendant  Sons 
and  Daughters  of  Eugenic  Sires  crave  the  honor  of  approaching 
and  testifying  before  this  great  Court  as  to  what  Progress  has 
done  for  them!  Your  Referendunces! 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  HODDY-DODDYS 

(Ranging  in  a  line  and  presenting  arms  with  their  feather- 
dusters.) 

Oh,  never,  never  has  there  been 
A  sight  to  equal  this,  we  ween! 

Glorious! 
(They  clog,  and  chatter  their  teeth.) 

THE  MEMBERS  OF  THE  INTER- FEDERATED   ASSOCIA- 
TION OF  INTER-ASIATIC  DESCENDANT  SONS  AND 

DAUGHTERS 

(Pirouetting  and  bowing  to  each  other.) 
'Tis  six  full  centuries  at  least 
Since  un-Eugenic  weddings  ceased; 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  305 

And  now  each  youth  and  maid  you  see 

Is  married  full  Eugenic-ly. 

In  us  behold  the  perfect  fruitage 

That  followed  on  the  former  brute-age! 
(They  ring-around-the-rosy.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Lifted  to  a  sitting  position  by  the  Dizzards,  tickled  with 
feather-dusters,  beaten  with  wind-bags  and  doused  with  ice- 
water  until  he  opens  his  eyes.)  What  a  sight! — A  beautiful 
sight,  I  mean!  My  word!  O  never,  my  celebrated  and  asso- 
ciated Referendunces  (he  turns  to  them)  have  I  seen  so  much 
beauty  and  virtue!  Never!  So  much  modesty!  So  much — 
much — everything!  Really  this  is  the  worst — I  mean  best — 
I  ever  saw!  This  in  itself  is  a  complete  refutation  of  that  foul 
charge,  once  so  common,  that  the  world  was  in  danger  of  not 
progressing.  Look!  Behold!  O  Progress,  where  is  thy  sting? 
(He* collapses,  calling  for  souffle,  but  is  bolstered  up  and  ice- 
water  poured  over  him.) 

ONE  HUNDRED  EUGENIC  MAIDS 

(In  pink  Mother  Hubbards  and  green  Quaker  bonnets.  Step- 
ping forward  and  sinking  on  one  knee,  hands  on  their  chins. 
They  sing.) 

It  is  our  duty  to  attest 

How  by  Eugenics  we  are  blest! 

O  'tis  a  wondrous  art  divine, 

Which  causes  all  the  world  to  shine  I 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Leaning  over  the  railing  and  eying  them  closely.)  Really! 
This  is  the  limit — I  mean  almost  too  much — too  much!  Sweet 
maids!  Dear  sweet  maids!  This  spectacle  of  the  perfect 
fruitage  of  Progress  under  the  great  moral  care  of  our  fore- 
fathers— blessed  be  the  name  of  the  ever-to-be-remembered  An- 
thony!— (he  bows,  and  the  audience  with  him) — is  all  but  too 
much!  Progress  can  do  no  more!  I  would,  if  any  service 
which  the  mere  sight  of  you  does  not  render — could  render — 


3o6  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

ask  you  the  Twelfth  and  final  Question,  but  what  would  be  the 
use?  How  well  we  know  the  import  of  your  message,  even 
before  you  speak!  How  well  we  know  the  import  of  you  your- 
selves— wonderful  creatures  that  you  are!  (They  bow  their 
heads.)  This  vast  assemblage,  which  in  itself  is  a  testimony  to 
the  value  of  Eugenics,  understands  full  well  that  by  the  prac- 
tice of  Eugenics  alone  all  weakness,  vice,  crime,  art,  philosophy 
(except  that  which  our  dear  Union  Astronomers  and  Federated 
Philosophers  instinctively  know  and  proclaim) ,  the  need  of 
white-slave  laws,  saloons,  the  theater — all,  all  have  long  since 
been  done  away  with,  so  that  we  have  now — the  most  of 
us,  I  am  glad  to  say — not  even  so  much  as  an  historic  memory 
of  them.  Indeed,  as  we  all  know,  on  this  once  most  unsafe  but 
now  safest  of  planets  (applause  lasting  seventeen  minutes  )t 
men  and  women  are  now  as  safe  and  perfect  and  pure  as  ever 
our  worthy  forefathers  could  have  dreamed  of  or  desired.  Why, 
to  look  at  you  alone  is  enough!  (He  sighs  and  rests.) 

Dear  Eugenic  citizens  and  citizenesses,  without  taxing  you 
further  with  these  deep  and  brain-racking  questions,  so  sacred 
to  us  all  of  course,  the  one  message  of  this  great  Court  to  you  is 
to  go  and  do  as  you  have  always  done:  think  no  more  than  is 
absolutely  necessary.  Don't  tax  your  brains.  This,  our  great 
Federation  of  Commission-Ruled  Republics,  is  here  to  do  all 
that  for  you  (the  Moonshees  stir).  The  less  we  know  the 
better,  as  we  all  know.  (Long  and  loud  applause  lasting  eight- 
een minutes.)  In  former  and  darker,  and  therefore  sadder, 
times,  there  were  many  who  thought  differently.  But  they  and 
all  those  who  were  a  part  of  them  have  long  since  been  disposed 
of.  (Long  and  uproarious  applause.)  And  is  not,  I  now  ask 
you,  the  world  happier,  fairer,  sweeter  to  the  eye  and  the  mind? 
(Cries  of  "Hear!  Hear!"  and  "Yea!  Yea!"  lasting  two  hours.) 
Now,  dear  Eugenic  citizens,  you  need  only  consider  how 
thoughtless  you  are  and  therefore  how  happy  in  these  sweet 
exercises  and  games  such  as  we  see  here  to-day  which  contribute 
only  to  the  sustenance,  docility  and  fertility  of  man,  to  know 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  307 

how  true  all  this  is.  Be  thoughtless.  Be  happy.  And  by  so 
being,  as  I  always  think,  you  contribute  and  testify  to  the  ef- 
ficiency of  Truth,  Virtue,  Justice,  Mercy,  Sobriety,  Love,  Beau- 
ty, Simplicity,  Peace — (he  collapses  from  sheer  exhaustion.) — 
Souffle!  Souffle!  (A  bucket  of  souffle  is  brought  and  adminis- 
tered.) 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  MAIDS 

(Wishing  not  to  tire  their  noble  Referendunces,  singing  in 
chorus.) 

O,  sweet  Eugenic  thought — to  know 
That  our  dear  Noxus  loves  us  so! 
(They  fall  back  in  the  ranks.) 

(Enter  fifteen  thousand  Descendant  Sons  and  Daughters  of 
Ancient  and  Honorable  Anti-White  Slavers  of  the  pre-Feder- 
ated  Period  (A.  D.  1870-1927),  in  green-and-white  kilts  and 
galligaskins,  with  perukes  and  billy-cocks  on  their  heads. 
They  march  swiftly  forward,  an  expression  of  grim  determina- 
tion— historically  correct — on  their  faces,  and  pause  before  the 
Musnud.  Over  their  left  arms,  after  the  fashion  of  the  world's 
great  Anti-White-Slave  Leaders  and  in  accordance  with  his- 
torical descriptions  of  the  same,  hang  immense  mantles  of  dark 
green  bed-ticking  intended  to  shield  naked  fleeing  white  slaves. 
Over  their  shoulders  are  carried  papier-mache  broadaxes  of  the 
kind  known  to  have  been  used  by  all  Anti-White-Slavers,  male 
and  female,  in  felling  the  enemy.  These  they  occasionally 
brandish  as  they  walk.  At  their  belts  hang  lanterns,  files,  skele- 
ton keys,  medicine  kits  containing  concentrated  food  pills,  digi- 
talis and  the  like,  all  intended  for  the  rescue  and  resuscitation 
of  overcome  white  slaves.  Their  eyelids  and  mouths  are 
painted  a  bright  cerise  to  give  a  look  of  extra  vigor  and  force, 
and  as  they  walk,  one  hundred  abreast,  they  peer  to  right  and 
left  in  the  most  searching  and  secretive  and  yet  detecting  way 
from  beneath  their  hands,  and  occasionally  flash  their  dark 
lanterns  on  the  surrounding  spectators.) 


3o8  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH 

(Leaping  up  and  cracking  his  heels  nine  times  before  de- 
scending.) Your  Referendunces!  Your  Referendunces!  We 
have  here  the  only  living  Descendant  Sons  and  Daughters  of 
Ancient  and  Honorable  American  Anti- White  Slavers — the  or- 
ganization which  in  its  day  gave  rise — laid  the  foundation,  as 
it  were,  of  our  present  great  and  perfect  World  Federation,  over 
which  at  present  your  Referendunces  are  so  ably  presiding.  It 
claims  to  be  the  only  existing  organization  that  preserves  in  all 
their  purity  the  customs,  manners  and  instincts  of  the  original 
pre-Federated  Anti- White-Slavers  of  seven  and  eight  centuries 
since.  I  beg  of  your  Referendunces — I  beg  of  you! — on  this 
very  special  occasion — I  know  you  are  tired — Will  your  Refer- 
endunces be  pleased  to  receive  them?  (He  runs  swiftly  around 
in  a  ring  and  falls  over  three  extended  feather-dusters.  NOXUS 
PODUNKUS  groans.  The  Moonshees  moan.) 
THE  ONE  HUNDRED  ZANYS 

(Dancing  on  before  them  and  rattling  their  wind-bags.)  The 
Anti-White-Slavers!    The  Anti-White-Slavers!  Look!   Behold! 
THE  FIFTY  DIZZARDS 

(Beating  the  Moonshees  with  feather-clubs  and  whistling  be- 
tween their  teeth.)  Awake!  Awake!  (The  Moonshees  stir 
feebly  and  call  for  souffle.  By  the  aid  of  a  dozen  gallons  of 
ice-water  NOXUS  PODUNKUS  is  once  more  aroused  and  now 
surveys  the  approaching  procession,  which  marches  about  the 
arena  and  back  to  the  Musnud.) 

NOXUS  PODUNKUS 

(Scratching  his  left  ear  and  surveying  the  assembled  throng.) 
What — more?  Oh!  Well,  welcome,  noble  citizens!  Welcome! 
I  see  by  your  brows  that  you  possess  the  unconquerable  love  of 
Liberty,  Virtue,  Truth,  Justice,  Beauty,  etc.,  so  necessary  to 
the  happy  maintenance  of  our  present  Federated  condition. 
(He  collapses  and  more  souffle  is  administered.  Recovering.) 
Stick  to  it!  What  supreme  comfort  it  must  be  to  you  and  your 
exceedingly  courageous  ancestors  to  know  that  our  very  happy 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  309 

present  condition  is  almost  entirely  due  to  them — their  noble 
deeds  of  valor  performed  in  order  that  we  might  become  so — 
so — (he  coughs).  What  supreme  deeds  would  not  you  now,  I 
am  sure  (they  brandish  their  battleaxes)  gladly  perform  were 
it  not  that  fortunately  all  provocation  had  long  since  been  done 
away  with.  (Loud  cheering.  All  the  Nizys,  Zanys,  Noddy- 
DoddySj  etc.,  walk  on  their  hands.)  Night  after  night  in  the 
wilds  of  the  great  cities  of  those  far-off  centuries,  now  so  hap- 
pily past,  did  your  forefathers  fearlessly  and  tirelessly  seek  out 
the  enslavers  of  resisting  and  lovely  womanhood  and  battle  to 
the  death  with  those  who  would  have  corrupted  our  worthy 
sires — I  mean  siresses — Souffle! — (he  imbibes) — performing 
astounding  and  now  almost  unbelievable  feats  of  valor,  felling 
the  vile  and  rapacious  enslaver  to  the  plain  and  chopping  him 
to  bits,  leaving  us,  their  humble  descendants,  little  if  anything 
to  do  save  revere  and  historically  represent  the  marvels  which 
they  then  performed.  (Immense  and  prolonged  cheering.  Eight 
thousand  wireless  messages  are  sent  forth.)  Literature,  by  their 
aid,  as  we  all  well  know,  has  at  last  been  completely  done  away 
with.  (Riotous  applause.)  Profane  art  in  all  its  forms  and  all 
its  seductive  wiles  has  long  since  ceased.  (The  audience  shouts 
for  one  hour.)  The  vile  newspapers  of  ancient  days  (innumer- 
able swells  of  booing  and  cat-calling) ,  wont  to  chronicle  only 
the  private  and  social  vices  of  unregenerate  man,  now,  thanks 
to  the  unremitting  toil  of  those  who  had  only  the  moral  regen- 
eration of  the  world  in  view,  its  true  spiritual  progress  (pro- 
longed and  enduring  applause),  chronicle  only  the  sweet  mes- 
sages of  hope  and  cheer  by  which  we  sustain  each  other  in  our 
happy  state — Souffle!  Souffle!  (He  dips  his  head  in  a  pan- 
nier. The  audience  cheers  for  one  hour.)  Now  we  are  not 
troubled  with  politics,  armies,  or  any  vile  evidences  of  com- 
mercial strife  and  contest.  (More  applause.)  Nothing  dis- 
turbs us  in  any  way!  Could  we  ask  more?  (Cries  of  "Hear! 
Hear!")  As  I  was  saying  to  those  dear  creatures  who  just  left, 
our  beloved  Eugenic  citizens  and  citizenesses,  we  need  now  only 


310  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

concern  ourselves  with  the  simple  arts  of  peace  and  pleasure  as 
we  here  see  manifest  in  this  great  assemblage.  On  you,  there- 
fore, more  than  on  any  other  group  which  at  this  time  could 
come  before  this  august  Court  to  testify  to  the  Truth,  Peace, 
Virtue,  Sequacity  and  Docility  of  our  present  world-realm,  de- 
volves, as  lineal  descendants  of  these  our  great  sires,  the  sweet 
task  of  keeping  bright  the  memory  of  their  great  deeds.  I  am 
sure  that  you,  my  dears  and  dearesses,  by  maintaining  so  earn- 
est a  stand  against  all  thought  of  any  kind,  by  persisting  in  your 
aversion  to  moral  heresies  of  all  sorts  and  indeed  learning  and 
science  in  every  form,  and  by  your  persistent  and  industrious 
mutilation  and  destruction  of  all  profane  facts,  so  long  the 
curse  of  society  (loud  cries  of  "Down  with  all  facts/"),  will 
succeed — I  know  you  will! — in  keeping  the  world  as  fresh  and 
pure  and  innocent  as  on  the  day  it  was  made.  (Cries  of  "Yes, 
yes"  and  "we  will,  we  will"  Applause  for  one  hour.)  Souffle! 
Souffle!  (He  is  fed.) — Cruel,  disturbing  thought,  that  one 
great  curse  of  humanity  in  its  earlier  ages  must  never  be  al- 
lowed to  trouble  us  again.  (Immense  applause.)  And  since,  by 
what  processes  of  hardy  non-thinking  only  our  revered  ances- 
tors know,  profound  peace  has  at  last  been  reached,  I  caution 
you,  O  my  fellow-citizens,  let  not  a  single  irritating  disturbing 
fact  ever  again  impinge  upon  the  sweet  idealism  and  mental 
slumber  which  now  reigns.  Behold  our  happy  Dizzards!  (They 
wiggle  their  stuffed  clubs.)  Could  any  of  the  so-called  and 
boasted  mental  processes  of  former  ages  have  produced  them? 
(They  walk  on  their  hands.)  And  our  dear  Zanys!  (They  rattle 
their  wind-bags.)  What  would  our  great  peaceful  Federation  be 
without  them?  (They  beat  each  other  over  the  head.)  Or 
our  graceful  Nizys!  (They  take  up  wash-boilers  of  souffle  and 
ladle  it  right  and  left  solemnly.)  The  gentility  and  whole- 
heartedness  of  their  service!  (They  playfully  pelt  each  other 
with  cones  filled  with  souffle.)  Or  our  kindly  Hoddy-Doddys! 
(They  vault.)  What  more  could  humanity  desire  in  the  shape 
of  perfect  and  helpful  men?  (They  leap  on  each  other's  backs 


THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS  311 

and  fall  gracefully  to  the  floor.)  When  I  contemplate  these, 
and  this  great  audience  (profound  applause  lasting  seventeen 
minutes),  and  these  our  assembled  cohorts  of  Virtue,  Truth, 
Justice,  Mercy  (more  applause,  lasting  one  hour),  come  here 
from  all  parts  of  the  known  world  to  testify  to  the  great 
fundamental  truths  which  have  made  them  so,  I — (At  this 
point  the  great  audience  rises  en  masse  and  cheers  for  one  hour, 
seventeen  and  one-half  minutes  and  thirteen  seconds.  Rival 
groups  of  Descendant  Sons  and  Daughters  of  Ancient  and  Hon- 
orable Anti-White-Slavers,  Anti-Vivisectionists,  Anti-Contra- 
ceptionists,  Bitty  Sundays,  Eugenic  Sires,  Anti-Saloon  Leaguer sy 
Watch  and  Ward  Guards,  King's  Daughters,  Free  and  Accepted 
Boy  Scouts,  etc.,  rush  forward  and  seize  upon  the  cages  con- 
taining the  only  remaining  specimens  of  Gambler,  Saloon- 
keeper, Predatory  Financier,  Philosopher,  Magdalen,  Vivisec- 
tionist,  Madam,  Nietzschean  and  other  early  examples  of  now 
nearly  or  quite  extinct  miscreants  or  papier-mache  representa- 
tions of  the  same,  and  haul  them  before  the  Musnud  amid  the 
cheering,  hee-hawing,  cat-calling  of  the  audience.  The  Zanys, 
Nizys,  Dizzards,  Loobies,  Hoddy-Doddys,  Gaberlunzies  and 
Fuddys,  forgetting  their  regular  duties,  spin,  squeal,  play  at 
leap-frog,  beat  each  other  with  feather-dusters  and  wind-bags. 
Various  regiments  of  Descendant  Sons  and  Daughters  of 
Ancient  and  Honorable  Feminists,  Professors  of  Christian 
Economy,  Prohibitionists,  Socialists,  etc.,  who  have  not  yet  had 
the  privilege  of  parading  and  testifying  before  the  Musnud, 
crowd  the  entryways,  swarm  the  aisles  and  so  obstruct  the 
peaceful  and  orderly  development  of  the  proceedings  of  the 
Court  that,  in  view  of  this  and  because  ordinarily  the  pro- 
ceedings consume  from  twenty  to  thirty  days  anyhow,  so  great 
is  the  anxiety  of  all  to  testify  to  the  magnificent  progress  of 
the  world  since  vice  and  crime  have  been  done  away  with, 
NOXUS  PODUNKUS,  now  thoroughly  awake  and  after  due 
counsel  with  the  ninety-nine  other  Moonshees,  Savants,  Roctor- 
Proctors,  Pundits,  Theorists,  Zadkiels,  Seers,  Oracles,  Solons, 


3i2  THE  COURT  OF  PROGRESS 

Nestors,  Gamaliels,  Daniels,  etc.,  also  disturbed  in  their  slum- 1 
bers,  decides  that,  all  things  considered,  and  notwithstanding,  it  * 
were  as  well  if  the  taking  of  testimony  were  to  be  discon-'\ 
tinned  for  this  day,  and  to  this  end,  after  various  signs,  grunt  s^ 
squeals,   motions  to   the  Zanys,   Dizzards,   Nizys,  £,oobiesk, 
Hoddy-Doddys,   Gaberlunzies,  Fuddys,   etc.,   the  latter    are  I 
brought  to  their  senses  and  through  them  the  audience  calmed.  J 
(It  was  then  that  NOXUS  PODUNKUS,  speaking  for  the  1 
Musnud,  announced  that  the  proceedings  for  this  day  were  I 
hereby  ended  and  that  the  Court  stood  adjourned  until  the  fol-  i 
lowing  morning  at  ten  o'clock;  after  which  SHISHMASH 
HASH  HASH,  as  Master  of  Ceremonies,  Chairmaster,  etc.,  led 
the  outgoing  throng  with  a  magnificent  example  of  rotary 
hand-spring  motion.       At  this  point,  also,  owing  to  lack  of 
space  and  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  enough  is  as  good  as  a 
{east,  the  humble  recording  Dramatist  quits  and  the  curtain 
is  hereby  draum  on  this  historic  scene.     For  those,  however, 
who  desire  a  fuller  report  of  the  same,  it  may  be  found  in 
Volumes  MMCCCIH,  MMMMMMMMCCCLLVI,  Proceed- 
ings of  the  Federated  Court  of  Progress  [Moline-Emporia-Se- 
dalia  Sittings]  for  the  years  39i3-'i4-'i5,  NOXUS  PODUN- 
KUS presiding;  SHISHMASH  HASH  HASH,  Secretary  and 
Master  of  Ceremonies.) 


Curtain. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 
To  renew  by  phone,  call  429-2756 


JUN  5     1974 


50m-9,'72(Q4585s8)—  3A-1 


1514 


